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AUTOBIOGRAPHIC 



SKETCHES. 



BY 



THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 



^^V^ 



BOSTON: 
TICK NOR AND FIELD 

M DCCC LIX. 






Entered accorrliiig to Act of Consress, in the yenr 1S53, by 

TICKXOR, KKED, AXl) FIELDS, 

lu lae C'lerl s .liite of the District Court of tiie District of Massachusetts. 



SELECTIONS, 
GRAVE AND GAY, 

FROM 

WRITINGS PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED, 
BY 

THOMAS DE QUINOEY. 



EXTRACT FROM A LETTER 

WRITTEN BY MR DE QUINCEY TO THE AMEKICAN EDITOR 
OF HIS WORKS 



Lasswade, January 8, 1853. 

My dear Sir: 

I am on the point of revising and considerably 
altering, for republication in England, an edition of 
such amongst my writings as it may seem proper 
deliberately to avow. Not that I have any inten- 
tion, or consciously any reason, expressly to disown 
any one thing that I have ever published ; but some 
things have sufficiently accomplished their purpose 
when they have met the call of that particular tran- 
sient occasion in which they arose ; and others, it 
may be thought on review, might as well have been 
suppressed from the very first. Things immoral 

5 



b LETTER FROM MR. DE QUINCEY. 

would of course fall within that category ; of these, 
however, I cannot reproach myself with ever hav- 
ing published so much as one. But even pure levi- 
ties, simply as such, and without liability to any 
worse objection, may happen to have no justifying 
principle of life within them ; and if, any where, I 
find such a reproach to lie against a paper of mine, 
that paper I should wish to cancel. So that, upon 
the whole, my new and revised edition is likely to 
differ by very considerable changes Irom the origi- 
nal papers; and, consequently, to that extent is 
likely to differ from your existing Boston reprint. 
These changes, as sure to be more or less advan- 
tageous to the collection, it is my wish to place at 
your disposal as soon as possible, in order that 
you may make what use of them you see fit, be it 
little or much. It may so happen that the public 
demand will give you no opportunity for using them 
at all. I go on therefore to mention, that over and 
above these changes, which may possibly strike you 
as sometimes mere caprices, pulling down in order 
to rebuild, or turning squares into rotundas, (diruit, 
cedijicat, mutat qnadrata rotundis,) it is my purpose 
to enlarge this edition by as many new papers as I 



LETTER FROM MR. DE QUINCEY. 7 

find available for such a station. These I am anx- 
ious to put into the hands of your house, and, so 
far as regards the U. S., of your house exclusively ; 
not with any view to further emolument, but as an 
acknowledgment of the services which you have al- 
ready rendered me ; viz., first, in having brought to- 
gether so widely scattered a collection — a difficulty 
which in my own hands by too painful an experi- 
ence I had found from nervous depression to be ab- 
solutely insurmountable ; secondly, in having made 
me a participator in the pecuniary profits of the 
American edition, without solicitation or the shadow 
of any expectation on my part, without any legal 
claim that I could plead, or equitable warrant in 
established usage, solely and merely upon your own 
spontaneous motion. Some of these new papers, I 
hope, will not be without their value in the eyes of 
those who have taken an interest in the original se- 
ries. But at all events, good or bad, they are now 
tendered to the appropriation of your individual 
house, the Messrs. Ticknor, Reed, & Fields, accord- 
ing to the amplest extent of any power to make 
such a transfer that I may be found to possess by 
law or custom in America. 



8 ' LETTER FROM MR. DE QUINCEY. 

I wish this transfer were likely to be of more 
value. But the veriest trifle, interpreted by the 
spirit in which 1 offer it, may express my sense of 
the liberality manifested throughout this transac- 
tion by your honorable house. 

Ever believe me, my dear sir, 

Your faithful and obliged, 

THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 



PREFACE 



THE ENGLISH EDITION 



The miscellaneous writings which I propose to 
lay before the public in this body of selections are 
in part to be regarded as a republication of papers 
scattered through several British journals twenty or 
thirty years ago, which papers have been reprinted 
in a collective form by an American house of high 
character in Boston ; but in part they are to be 
viewed as entirely new, large sections having been 
intercalated in the present edition, and other changes 
made, which, even to the old parts, by giving very 
great expansion, give sometimes a character of ab- 
solute novelty. Once, therefore, at home, with the 
allowance for the changes here indicated, and once 
in America, it may be said that these writings have 
been in some sense published. But publication is a 
great idea never even approximated by the utmost 

9 



10 PREFACE. 

anxieties of man. Not the Bible, not the little 
book which, in past times, came next to the Bible in 
European diffusion and currency,* viz., the treatise 
" De Imitatione Christi," has yet in any generation 
been really published. Where is ,the printed book 
of which, in Coleridge's words, it may not be said 
that, after all, efforts to publish itself, still it remains, 
for the world of possible readers, " as good as man- 
uscript" ? Not to insist, however, upon any ro- 
mantic rigor in constructing this idea, and abiding 
by the ordinary standard of what is understood by 
publication^ it is probable that, in many cases, my 
own papers must have failed in reaching even this. 
For they were printed as contributions to journals. 

* " Next to the Bible in currency." — That is, next in the fifteenth 
century to the Bible of the nineteenth century. The diffusion of 
the " De Imitatione Chiisti" over Christendom (the idea oi Chris- 
tendom, it must be remembered, not then including any part of 
America) anticipated, in 1453, the diffusion of the Bible in 1853. 
But why ? Through what causes ? Elsewhere I have attempted 
to show that this enormous (and seemingly incredible) popularity 
of the " De Imitatione Christi " is virtually to be interpreted as 
a vicarious popularity of the Bible. At that time the Bible itself 
was a fountain of inspired truth every where sealed up ; but a whis- 
per ran through the western nations of Europe that the work of 
Thomas a Kempis contained some slender rivulets of truth silently 
stealing away into light from that interdicted fountain. This be- 
lief (so at least I read the case) led to the prodigious multiplication 
of the book, of -svhich not merely the reimpressions, but the sepa- 
rate translations, are past all couiiting ; though bibliographers have 
undertaken to count them. The book came forward as an answer 
to the sighing of Christian Europe for light from heaven. I speak 
of Thomas a Kempis as the author ; but his claim was disputed. 
Gerson was adopted by France as the author ; and other local 
saints by other nations. 



PREFACE. 



11 



Now, that mode of publication is unavoidably dis- 
advantageous to a writer, except under unusual 
conditions. By its harsh peremptory punctuality, it 
drives a man into hurried writing, possibly into 
saying the thing that is not. They won't wait an 
hour for you in "a magazine or a review; they won't 
wait for truth ; you may as well reason with the sea, 
or a railway train, as in such a case with an edit- 
or ; and, as it makes no difference whether that sea 
which you desire to argue with is the Mediterranean 
or the Baltic, so, with that editor and his deafness, it 
matters not a straw whether he belong to a northern 
or a southern journal. Here is one evil of journal 
writing — viz., its overmastering precipitation. A 
second is, its effect at times in narrowing your 
publicity. Every journal, or pretty nearly so, is un- 
derstood to hold (perhaps in its very title it makes 
proclamation of holding) certain fixed principles in 
politics, or possibly religion. These distinguish- 
ing features, which become badges of enmity and 
intolerance, all the more intense as they descend 
upon narrower and narrower grounds of separation, 
must, at the very threshold, by warning ofi^ those 
who dissent from them, so far operate to limit your 
audience. To take my own case as an illustration : 
these present sketches were published in a journal 
dedicated to purposes of political change such as 
many people thought revolutionary. I thought so 
myself, and did not go along with its politics. Inev- 
itably that accident shut them out from the knowl- 
edge of a very large reading class. Undoubtedly 
this journal, being ably and conscientiously con- 



12 PREFACE. 

ducted, had some circulation amongst a neutral class 
of readers ; and amongst its own class it was popu- 
lar. But its own class did not ordinarily occupy 
that position in regard to social influence which 
could enable them rapidly to diffuse the knowledge 
of a writer. A reader whose social standing is 
moderate may communicate his views upon a book 
or a writer to his own circle ; but his own circle is a 
narrow one. Whereas, in aristocratic classes, having 
more leisure and wealth, the intercourse is incon- 
ceivably more rapid ; so that the publication of any 
book which interests them is secured at once ; and 
this publishing influence passes downwards; but 
rare, indeed, is the inverse process of publication 
through an influence spreading upwards. 

According to the way here described, the papers 
now presented to the public, like many another set 
of papers nominally published, were not so in any 
substantial sense. Here, at home, they may be 
regarded as still unpublished.* But, in such a case, 



* At the same time it must not be denied, that, if you lose by a 
journal in the way here described, you also gain by it. The jour- 
nal gives you the benefit of its ot\ti separate audience, that might 
else never have heard your name. On the other hand, in such a 
case, the journal secures to you the special enmity of its own pe- 
cviliar antagonists. These papers, for instance, of mine, not being 
political, were read possibly in a friendly temper by the regular 
supporters of the journal that published them. But some of my 
own political friends regarded me with displeasiire for connecting 
myself at all with a reforming journal. And far more, who would 
have been liberal enough to disregard that objection, naturally lost 
sight of me when under occultation to them in a journal which 
they never saw. 



PREFACE. 13 

why were not the papers at once detached from the 
journal, and reprinted ? In the neglect to do this, 
some there are who will read a blamable carelessness 
in the author ; but, in that carelessness, others will 
read a secret consciousness that the papers were of 
doubtful value. I have heard, indeed, that some 
persons, hearing of this republication, had inter- 
preted the case thus : Within the last four or five 
years, a practice has arisen amongst authors of 
gathering together into volumes their own scattered 
contributions to periodical literature. Upon that 
suggestion, they suppose me suddenly to have re- 
membered that I also had made such contributions ; 
that mine might be entitled to their chance as well 
as those of others ; and, accordingly, that on such a 
slight invitation ab extra, I had called back into 
life what otherwise I had long since regarded as 
having already fulfilled its mission, and must doubt- 
less have dismissed to oblivion. 

1 do not certainly know, or entirely believe, that 
any such thing was really said. But, however that 
may be, no representation can be more opposed to 
the facts. Never for an instant did I falter in my 
purpose of republishing most of the papers which I 
had written. Neither, if I myself had been inclined 
to forget them, should I have been allowed to do so 
by strangers. For it happens that, during the four- 
teen last years, I have received from many quarters 
in England, in Ireland, in the British colonies, 
and in the United States, a series of letters express- 
ing a far profounder interest in papers written by 
myself than any which I could ever think myself 



14 PREFACE. 

entitled to look for. Had I, therefore, otherwise cher- 
ished no purposes of republication, it now became 
a duty of gratitude and respect to these numerous 
correspondents, that I should either republish the 
papers in question, or explain why 1 did not. The 
obstacle in fact had been in part the shifting state 
of the law which regulated literary property, and 
especially the property in periodical literature. But 
a far greater difficulty lay in the labor (absolutely 
insurmountable to myself) of bringing together from 
so many quarters the scattered materials of the col- 
lection. This labor, most fortunately, was suddenly 
taken off my hands by the eminent house of Messrs 
TiCKNOR, Reed, & Fields, Boston, U. S. To them 
T owe my acknowledgments, first of all, for that ser- 
vice : they have brought together a great majority 
of my fugitive papers in a series of volumes now 
amounting to twelve. And, secondly, I am bound 
to mention that they have made me a sharer in the 
profits of the publication, called upon to do so by 
no law whatever, and assuredly by no expectation 
of that sort upon my part. 

Taking as the basis of my remarks this collective 
American edition, I will here attempt a rude general 
classification of all the articles which compose it. 
I distribute them grossly into three classes : Firsts 
into that class which proposes primarily to amuse 
the reader ; but which, in doing so, may or may not 
happen occasionally to reach a higher station, at 
which the amusement passes into an impassioned 
interest. Some papers are merely playful ; bat 
others have a mixed character. These present Auto* 



PREFACE. 15 

biographic Sketches illustrate what I mean. Gen- 
erally, they pretend to little beyond that sort of 
amusement which attaches to any real story, thought- 
fully and faithfully related, moving through a suc- 
cession of scenes sufficiently varied, that are not 
suffered to remain too long upon the eye, and that 
connect themselves at every stage with intellectual 
objects. But, even here, I do not scruple to claim 
from the reader, occasionally, a higher consideration. 
At times, the narrative rises into a far higher key. 
Most of all it does so at a period of the writer's life 
where, of necessity, a severe abstraction takes place 
from all that could invest him with any alien interest ; 
no display that might dazzle the reader, nor ambi- 
tion that could carry his eye forward with curiosity 
to the future, nor successes, fixing his eye on the 
present ; nothing on the stage but a solitary infant, 
and its solitary combat with grief — a mighty dark- 
ness, and a sorrow without a voice. But something 
of the same interest will be found, perhaps, to re- 
kindle at a maturer age, when the characteristic 
features of the individual mind have been unfolded. 
And I contend that much more than amusement 
ought to settle upon any narrative of a life that is 
really confidential. It is singular — but many of my 
readers will know it for a truth — that vast numbers 
of people, though liberated from all reasonable 
motives to self-restraint, cannot be confidential — 
have it not in their power to lay aside reserve ; and 
many, again, cannot be so with particular people. 
I have witnessed more than once the case, that a 



16 PREFACE. 

young female dancer, at a certain turn of a peculiar 
dance, could not — though she had died for it — sus- 
tain a free, fluent motion. Aerial chains fell upon 
her at one point; some invisible spell (who could say 
what?) froze her elasticity. Even as a horse, at 
noonday on an open heath, starts aside from some- 
thing his rider cannot see ; or as the flame within a 
Davy lamp feeds upon the poisonous gas up to the 
meshes that surround it, but there suddenly is arrest- 
ed by barriers that no Aladdin will ever dislodge. It 
is because a man cannot see and measure these mys- 
tical forces which palsy him, that he cannot deal 
with them effectually. If he were able really to 
pierce the haze which so often envelops, even to 
himself, his own secret springs of action and re- 
serve, there cannot be a life moving at all under in- 
tellectual impulses that would not, through that 
single force of absolute frankness, fall within the 
reach of a deep, solemn, and sometimes even of a 
thrilling interest. Without pretending to an interest 
of this quality, I have done what was possible on my 
part towards the readiest acces.s to such an interest 
by perfect sincerity — saying everywhere nothing 
but the truth ; and in any case forbearing to say 
the whole truth only through consideration for 
others. 

Into the second class I throw those papers which 
address themselves purely to the understanding as 
an insulated faculty ; or do so primarily. Let me call 
Ihem by the general name of Essays. These, as in 
other cases of the same kind, must have their value 



PREFACE. 17 

measured by two separate questions. A. What 
is the problem, and of what rank in dignity or in 
use, which the essay undertakes ? And next, 
that point being settled, B. What is the success 
obtained ? and (as a separate question) what is the 
executive ability displayed in the solution of the 
problem ? This latter question is naturally no ques- 
tion for myself, as the answer would involve a ver- 
dict upon my own merit. But, generally, there will 
be quite enough in the answer to question A for 
establishing the value of any essay on its soundest 
basis. Prudens interrogatio est dimidiuni scientice. 
Skilfully to frame your question, is half way to- 
wards insuring the true answer. Two or three of 
the problems treated in these essays 1 will here re- 
hearse. 

1. EssENisM. — The essay on this, where mention- 
ed at all in print, has been mentioned as dealing 
with a question of pure speculative curiosity: so 
little suspicion is abroad of that real question which 
lies below. Essenism means simply this — Christi- 
anity before Christ, and consequently without Christ. 
If, therefore, Essenism could make good its preten- 
sions, there at one blow would be an end of Chris- 
tianity, which in that case is not only superseded 
as an idle repetition of a religious system already 
published, but also as a criminal plagiarism. Nor 
can the wit of man evade that conclusion. But 
even that is not the worst. When we contemplate 
the total orb of Christianity, we see it divide into 
two hemispheres : first, an ethical system, differing 
centrally from any previously made known to man 
2 



IS PREFACE. 

secondly, a mysterious and divine machinery for 
reconciling man to God ; a teaching to be taught, 
but also a work to be worked. Now, the first we 
find again in the ethics of the counterfeit Essenes — 
which ought not to surprise us at all ; since it is 
surely an easy thing for him who pillages my 
thoughts ad libitum to reproduce a perfect resem- 
blance in his own : * but what has become of the 
second, viz., not the teaching, but the operative 
working of Christianity ? The ethical system is re- 
placed by a stolen system ; but what replaces the 
mysterious agencies of the Christian faith ? In Es- 
senism we find again a saintly scheme of ethics ; 
bat where is the scheme of mediation ? 

In the Romish church, there have been some 
theologians who have also seen reason to suspect 
the romance of " Essenismus." And I am not 
sure that the knowledge of this fact may not have 
operated to blunt the suspicions of the Protestant 
churches. I do not mean that such a fact would 
have absolutely deafened Protestant ears to the 
grounds of suspicion when loudly proclaimed ; but 
it is very likely to have indisposed them towards 
listening. Meantime, so far as I am acquainted 
with these Roman Catholic demurs, the difference 
between the}7i and my own is broad. They, with- 

* The crime of Josephus in relation to Cliristianity is the same, 
in fact,.^ as that of Lander in respect to Milton. It -was easy enough 
to detect plagiarisms in the «' Paradise Lost " from Latin passages 
fathered upon imaginary "writers, when these passages had previous- 
ly been forged by Lauder himself for the purpose of sustaining 
such a charge. 



PREFACE. 19 

out suspecting any subtle, fraudulent purpose, simply 
recoil from the romantic air of such a statement — 
which builds up, as with an enchanter's wand, an 
important sect, such as could not possibly have es- 
caped the notice of Christ and his apostles. I, on 
the other hand, insist not only upon the revolting 
incompatibility of such a sect with the absence of 
all attention to it in the New Testament, but (which 
is far more important) the incompatibility of such 
a sect (as a sect elder than Christ) with the original- 
ity and heavenly revelation of Christianity. Here 
is my first point of difference from the Romish ob- 
jectors. The second is this : not content with ex- 
posing the imposture, I go on, and attempt to show 
in what real circumstances, fraudulently disguised, 
it might naturally have arisen. In the real circum- 
stances of the Christian church, when struggling 
with Jeioish persecution at some period of the gen- 
eration between the crucifixion and the siege of 
Jerusalem, arose probably that secret defensive soci- 
ety of Christians which suggested to Josephus his 
knavish forgery. We must remember that Jose- 
phus did not WTite until after the great ruins effected 
by the siege ; that he wrote at Rome, far removed 
from the criticism of those survivors who could have 
exposed, or had a motive for exposing, his malicious 
frauds ; and, finally, that he wrote under the patron- 
age of the Flavian family : by his sycophancy he 
had won their protection, which would have over- 
awed any Christian whatever from coming forward 
to unmasii him, in the very improbable case of a 
work so large, costly, and, by its title, merely archae- 



20 PREFACE. 

ological, finding its way, at such a period, into 
the hands of any poor hunted Christian.* 

2. The C^sars. — This, though written hastily, 
and in a situation where I had no aid from books, 
is yet far from being what some people have sup- 
posed it — a simple recapitulation, or resume^ of the 
Roman imperatorial history. It moves rapidly over 
the ground, but still with an exploring eye, carried 
right and left into the deep shades that have gath- 
ered so thickly over the one solitary road f travers- 
ing that part of history. Glimpses of moral truth, or 
suggestions of what may lead to it ; indications of 
neglected difficulties, and occasionally conjectural 
solutions of such difficulties, — these are what this 
essay offers. It was meant as a specimen of fruits, 
gathered hastily and without effort, by a vagrant 
but thoughtful mind : through the coercion of its 
theme, sometimes it became ambitious ; but I did 
not give to it an ambitious title. Still I felt that 
the meanest of these suggestions merited a valua- 



* It is a significant fact, that Dr. Strauss, whose sceptical spirit, 
left to its own disinterested motions, would have looked through 
and through this monstrous fable of Essenism, coolly adopted it, 
no questions asked, as soon as he perceived the value of it as an 
argument against Christianity. 

t " Solitary road." — The reader must remember that, until the 
seventh century of our era, when Mahometanism arose, there was 
no collateral history. Why there was none, why no Gothic, why no 
Parthian history, it is for Rome to explain. We tax ourselves, and 
are taxed by others, with many an imaginary neglect as regards 
India ; but assuredly we cannot be taxed with that neglect. No 
part of our Indian empire, or of its adjacencies, but has occupied 
the researches of our Oriental scholars. 



PREFACE. 21 

tion : derelicts they were, not iii the sense of things 
wilfully abandoned by my predecessors on that road, 
but in the sense of things blindly overlooked. And, 
summing up in one word the pretensions of this 
particular essay, 1 will venture to claim for it so 
much, at least, of originality as ought not to have 
been left open to any body in the nineteenth cen- 
tury. 

3. Cicero. — This is not, as might be imagined, 
any literary valuation of Cicero ; it is a new read- 
ing of Roman history in the most dreadful and com- 
prehensive of her convulsions, in that final stage of 
her transmutations to which Cicero was himself a 
party — and, as I maintain, a most selfish and un- 
patriotic party. He was governed in one half by 
his own private interest as a novus homo dependent 
upon a wicked oligarchy, and in the other half by 
his blind hatred of Caesar ; the grandeur of whose 
nature he could not comprehend, and the real pa- 
triotism of whose policy could never be appreciated 
by one bribed to a selfish course. The great mob 
of historians have but one way of constructing the 
gTeat events of this era — they succeed to it as to 
an inheritance, and chiefly under the misleading of 
that prestige which is attached to the name of 
Cicero ; on which account it was that I gave this 
title to my essay. Seven years after it was pub- 
lished, this essay, slight and imperfectly developed 
as is the exposition of its parts, began to receive 
some public countenance. 

I was going on to abstract the principle involved 
in some other essays. But I forbear. These sped- 



22 PREFACE. 

mens are sufficient for the purpose of informing the 
reader that I do not write without a thoughtful 
consideration of my subject; and also, that to 
think reasonably upon any question has never been 
allowed by me as a sufficient ground for writing 
upon it, unless I believed myself able to offer some 
considerable novelty. Generally I claim (not arro- 
gantly, but with firmness) the merit of rectification 
applied to absolute errors or to injurious limitations 
of the truth. 

Finally, as a third class, and, in virtue of their 
aim, as a far higher class of compositions included 
in the American collection, I rank The Confessions 
of an Opium Eater ^ and also (but more emphatical- 
ly) the Suspiria de Profundis. On these, as modes 
of impassioned prose ranging under no precedents 
that I am aware of in any literature, it is much 
more difficult to speak justly, whether in a hostile 
or a friendly character. As yet, neither of these two 
works has ever received the least degree of that cor- 
rection and pruning which both require so extensive- 
ly ; and of the Suspiria, not more than perhaps one 
third has yet been printed. When both have been 
fully revised, I shall feel myself entitled to ask for a 
more determinate adjudication on their claims as 
works of art. At present, I feel authorized to make 
haughtier pretensions in right of their conception 
than I shall venture to do, under the peril of being 
supposed to characterize their execution. Two re- 
marks only I shall address to the equity of my 
reader. First, I desire to remind him of the peril- 
ous difficulty besieging all attempts to clothe in 



PREFACE. 23 

words the visionary scenes derived from the world 
of dreams, where a single false note, a single word 
in a wrong key, ruins the whole music ; and, second- 
ly, I desire him to consider the utter sterility of uni- 
versal literature in this one department of impas- 
sioned prose ; which certainly argues some singular 
difficulty suggesting a singular duty of indulgence 
in criticizing any attempt that even imperfectly suc- 
ceeds. The sole Confessions, belonging to past 
times, that have at all succeeded in engaging the 
attention of men, are those of St. Augustine and of 
Rousseau. The very idea of breathing a record of 
human passion, not into the ear of the random 
crowd, but of the saintly confessional, argues an 
impassioned theme. Impassioned, therefore, should 
be the tenor of the composition. Now, in St. 
Augustine's Confessions is found one most im- 
piassioned passage, viz., the lamentation for the 
death of his youthful friend in the fourth book; 
one, and no more. Further there is nothing. In 
Rousseau there is not even so much. In the whole 
work there is nothing grandly affecting but the char- 
acter and the inexplicable misery of the writer. 

Meantime, by what accident, so foreign to my 
nature, do I find myself laying foundations towards 
a highei valuation of my own workmanship ? O 
reader, I have been talking idly. I care not for any 
valuation that depends upon comparison with oth- 
ers. Place me where you will on the scale of com- 
parison : only suffer me, though standing lowest in 
your catalogue, to rejoice in the recollection of let- 
ters expressing the most fervid interest in particular 



24 PREFACE. 

passages or scenes of the Confessions^ and, by re- 
bound from tJiem^ an interest in their author : suffer 
me also to anticipate that, on the publication of 
some parts yet in arrear of the Suspiria, you your- 
self may possibly write a letter to me, protesting 
that your disapprobation is just where it was, but 
nevertheless that you are disposed to shake hands 
with me — by way of proof that you like me better 
than I deserve. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. pj^QB 
THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD, ... .2/ 
DIIEAM ECHOES OF THESE INFANT EXPEKIENCES, . 51 
DREAM ECHOES FIFTY YEARS LATER, 53 

CHAPTER II. 
INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE, . . .58 

CHAPTER III. 
INFANT LITERATURE, . 137 

CHAPTER IV. 
THE FEMALE INFIDEL, 153 

CHAPTER ">. 
I AM INTRODUCED TO THE WARFARE OF A PUBLIC 

SCHOOL, 170 

25 



26 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER YI. 
I ENTER THE WORLD, . . . . .... 184 

CHAPTER VII. 
TDE NATION OF LONDON, . . 2o4 

CHAPTER VIII. 
DL^BLIN, . . . ► 244 

CHAPTER IX. 
FIRST REBELLION IN IRELAND, il)2 

CHAPTER X. 
FRENCH INVASION OF IRELAND, AND SECOND REBEL- 
LION, ... 288 

CHAPTER XI. 
TRAVELLING, . . ... 309 

CHAPTER XII. 
MT BROTHER, . . .... . . 332 

CHAPTER XIII. 
PREMATURE MANHOOF ....... 3C6 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 

About the close of my sixth year, suddenly the firs' 
chapter of my life came to a violent termination ; tha' 
chapter which, even within the gates of recovered para- 
dise, might merit a remembrance. " Life is finished ! " 
was the secret misgiving of my heart ; for the heart of 
infancy is as apprehensive as that of maturest wisdom in 
relation to any capital wound inflicted on the happiness. 
''Life is finished ! Finished it is!'' was the hidden 
meaning that, half unconsciously to myself, lurked with- 
in my sighs ; and, as bells heard from a distance on a 
summer evening seem charged at times with an articulate 
form of words, some monitory message, that rolls round 
unceasingly, even so for me some noiseless and subterra- 
neous voice seemed to chant continually a secret word, 
made audible only to my own heart — that "now is the 
blossoming of life withered forever." Not that such 
words formed themselves vocally within my ear, or issued 
audibly from my lips ; but such a whisper stole silently to 
my heart. Yet in what sense could tliat be true ? For 
an infant not more than six years old, was it possible that 

27 



28 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

the promises of life had been really blighted, or its 
golden pleasures exhausted ? Had I seen Rome ? Had 
I read Milton ? Had I heard Mozart ? No. St. Peter's, 
the " Paradise Lost," the divine melodies of " Don Giovan- 
ni," all alike were as yet unrevealed to me, and not more 
through the accidents of my position than through the 
necessity of my yet imperfect sensibilities. Raptures there 
might be in arrear ; but raptures are modes of troubled 
pleasure. The peace, the rest, the central security which 
belong to love that is past all understanding, — these could 
return no more. Such a love, so unfathomable, — such a 
peace, so unvexed by storms, or the fear of storms, — had 
brooded over those four latter years of my infancy, which 
brought me into special relations to my elder sister ; she 
being at this period three years older than myself. The 
circumstances which attended the sudden dissolution of this 
most tender connection I will here rehearse. And, that I 
may do so more intelligibly, I will first describe that serene 
and sequestered position which we occupied in life.* 

* As occasions arise in these Sketches, when, merely for the pur- 
poses of intelligibility, it becomes requisite to call into notice such 
personal distinctions in my family as otherwise might be unim- 
portant, I here record the entire list of my brothers and sisters, ac- 
cording to their order of succession ; and Miltonically I include my- 
self; having surely as much logical right to count myself in the series 
of my own brothers as Milton could have to pronounce Adam the 
goodliest of his own sons. First and last, we counted as eight chil- 
dren, viz., four brothers and four sisters, though never counting more 
than six living at once, viz., 1. William, older than myself by more 
than five years ; 2. Elizabeth ; 3. Jane, who died in her fourth year ; 
A.Mary; 5. myself, certainly not the goodliest man of men since 
born my brothers ; 6. Richard, known to us all by the household 
name of Pink, who in his after years tilted up and down what might 
then be called his Britannic majesty's oceans (viz., the Atlantic and 
Pacific) in the quality of midshipman, until Waterloo in one day put 
an extinguisher on that whole generation of midshipmen, by extin- 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 29 

Any expression of personal vanity, intruding upon im- 
passioned records, is fatal to their etTect — as being in- 
compatible with that absorption of spirit and that self- 
oblivion in which only deep passion originates or can find 
a genial home. It would, therefore, to myself be exceed- 
ingly painful that even a shadow, or so much as a seeming 
expression of that tendency, should creep into these remi- 
niscences. And yet, on the other hand, it is so impossible, 
without laying an injurious restraint upon the natural 
movement of such a narrative, to prevent oblique gleams 
reaching the reader from such circumstances of luxury or 
aristocratic elegance as surrounded my childhood, that on 
all accounts I think it better to tell him, from the first, 
with the simplicity of truth, in what order of society my 
family moved at the time from which this preliminary nar- 
rative is dated. Otherwise it might happen that, merely 
by reporting faithfully the facts of this early experience, I 
could hardly prevent the reader from receiving an impres- 
sion as of some higher rank than did really belong to my 
family. And this impression might seem to have been 
designedly insinuated by myself. 

My father was a merchant ; not in the sense of Scotland, 
where it means a retail dealer, one, for instance, who sells 
groceries in a cellar, but in the English sense, a sense 
rigorously exclusive ; that is, he was a man engaged in 
foreign commerce, and no other ; therefore, in ivhoJesaJe 
commerce, and no other — which last limitation of the 
idea is important, because it brings him within the benefit 
of Cicero's condescending distinction* as one who ought 

guisliing all further call for their services ; 7. a second Jane ; 8. Henry, 
a posthumous child, who belonged to Brazennose College, Oxford, 
and died about his twenty-sixth year. 

* Cicero, in a well-known passage of his " Ethics," speaks of trade 
as irredeemably base, if petty, but as not so absolutely felonious it 
wholesale. 



30 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

to be despised certainly, but not too intensely to be de- 
spised even by a Roman senator. He — this imperfectly 
de«!picable man — died at an early age, and very soon after 
the incidents recorded in this chapter, leaving to his family, 
then consisting of a wife and six children, an unburdened 
estate producing exactly sixteen hundred pounds a year. 
Naturally, therefore, at the date of my narrative, — whilst 
he was still living, — he had an income very much 
larger, from the addition of current commercial profits. 
Now, to any man who is acquainted with commercial life 
as it exists in England, it will readily occur that in an 
opulent English family of that class — opulent, though not 
emphatically rich in a mercantile estimate — the domestic 
economy is pretty sure to move upon a scale of liberality 
altogether unknown amongst the corresponding orders in 
foreign nations. The establishment of servants, for in- 
stance, in such houses, measured even inimerically against 
those establishments in other nations, would somewhat sur- 
prise the foreign appraiser, simply as interpreting the rela- 
tive station in society occupied by the English merchant. 
But this same establishment, when measured by the quality 
and amount of the provision made for its comfort and even 
elegant accommodation, would fill him with twofold astonish- 
ment, as interpreting equally the social valuation of the 
English merchant, and also the social valuation of the 
English servant ; for, in the truest sense, England is the 
paradise of household servants. Liberal housekeeping, in 
fact, as extending itself to the meanest servants, and the 
disdain of petty parsimonies, are peculiar to England. And 
in this respect the families of English merchants, as a 
class, far outrun the scale of expenditure prevalent, not 
only amongst the corresponding bodies of continental na- 
tions, but even amongst the poorer sections of our own 
nobility — though confessedly the most splendid in Eu- 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 31 

rope ; a fact which, since the period of my infancy, I have 
had many personal opportunities for verifying both in Eng- 
land and in Ireland. From this peculiar anomaly, affect- 
ing the domestic economy of English merchants, there 
arises a disturbance upon the usual scale for measuring 
the relations of rank. The equation, so to speak, be- 
tween rank and the ordinary expressions of rank, which 
usually runs parallel to the graduations of expenditure, is 
here interrupted and confounded, so that one rank would 
be collected from the name of the occupation, and another 
rank, much higher, from the splendor of the domestic 
menage. I warn the reader, therefore, (or, rather, my ex- 
planation has already warned him,) that he is not to infer, 
from any casual indications of luxury or elegance, a cor- 
responding elevation of rank. 

We, the children of the house, stood, in fact, upon the 
very happiest tier in the social scaffolding for all good in- 
fluences. The prayer of Agur — '•' Give me neither pov- 
erty nor riches" — was realized for us. That blessing we 
had, being neither too high nor too low. High enough we 
were to see models of good manners, of self-respect, and 
of simple dignity ; obscure enough to be left in the sweet- 
est of solitudes. Amply furnished with all the nobler ben- 
efits of wealth, with extra means of health, of intellectual 
culture, and of elegant enjoyment, on the other hand, we 
knew nothing of its social distinctions. Not depressed by 
the consciousness of privations too sordid, not tempted into 
restlessness by the consciousness of privileges too aspiring, 
we had no motives for shame, we had none for pride. 
Grateful also to this hour I am, that, amidst luxuries in all 
things else, we were trained to a Spartan simplicity of 
diet — that we fared, in fact, very much less sumptuously 
than the servants. And if (after the model of the Em- 
peror Marcus Aureliusj I should return thanks to Provi- 



32 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

dence for all the separate blessings of my early situation, 
these four 1 would single out as worthy of special commemo- 
ration — that I lived in a rustic solitude ; that this solitude 
was in England ; that my infant feelings were moulded 
by the gentlest of sisters, and not by horrid, pugilistic 
brothers ; finally, that I and they were dutiful and loving 
members of a pure, holy, and magnificent church. 



The earliest incidents in my life, which left stings in my 
memory so as to be remembered at this day, were two, 
and both before I could have completeted my second year ; 
namely, 1st, a remarkable dream of terrific grandeur 
about a favorite nurse, which is interesting to myself for 
this reason — that it demonstrates my dreaming tendencies 
to have been constitutional, and not dependent upon laud- 
anum ; * and, 2dly, the fact of having connected a pro- 
found sense of pathos with the reappearance, very early 
in the spring, of some crocuses. This I mention as in- 
explicable : for such annual resurrections of plants and 
flowers affect us only as memorials, or suggestions of some 
higher change, and therefore in connection with the idea 
of death ; yet of death I could, at that time, have had no 
experience whatever. 

This, however, I was speedily to acquire. My two eldest 
sisters — eldest of three then living, and also elder than 
myself — were summoned to an early death. The first 

* It is tnie that in those days paregoric elixir was occasionally 
given to children in colds ; and in this medicine there is a small pro- 
portion of laudanum. But no medicine was ever administered to any 
member of our nursery except under medical sanction ; and this, 
assuredly, would not have been obtained to the exhibition of laud- 
anum in a case such as mine. For I Avas then not more that twen- 
ty-one months old ; at which ago the action of opium is capricious, 
and therefore perilous. 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 33 

who died was Jane, about two years older than myself. 
She was three and a half, I one and a half, more or less 
by some trifle that I do not recollect. But death was then 
scarcely intelligible to me, and I could not so properly be 
said to suffer sorrow as a sad perplexity. There was 
another death in the house about the same time, namely, 
of a maternal grandmother; but, as she had come to us 
for the express purpose of dying in her daughter's society, 
and from illness had lived perfectly secluded, our nursery 
circle knew her but little, and were certainly more affected 
by the death (which I witnessed) of a beautiful bird, viz., 
a kingfisher, which had been injured by an accident. With 
my sister Jane's death (though otherwise, as I have said, 
less sorrowful than perplexing) there was, however, con- 
nected an incident which made a most fearful impression 
upon myself, deepening my tendencies to thoughtfulness 
and abstraction beyond what would seem credible for my 
years. If there was one thing in this w^orld from which, 
more than from any other, nature had forced me to revolt, 
it was brutality and violence. Now, a whisper arose in the 
family that a female servant, who by accident was drawn 
off from her proper duties to attend my sister Jane for a 
day or two, had on one occasion treated her harshly, if not 
brutally; and as this ill treatment happened within three or 
four days of her death, so that the occasion of it must have 
been some fretfulness in the poor child caused by her suf- 
ferings, naturally there was a sense of awe and indignation 
diffused through the family. I believe the story never 
reached my mother, and possibly it was exaggerated ; but 
upon me the eflect was terrific. I did not often see the 
person charged with this cruelty ; but, when I did, my eyes 
sought the ground ; nor could I have borne to look her in 
the face; not, however, in any spirit that could be called 
auger. The feeling which fell upon me was a shuddering 
3 



34 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

horror, as upon a first glimpse of the truth that I was in a 
world of evil and strife. Though born in a large town, 
(the town of Manchester, even then amongst the largest 
of the island,) I had passed the whole of my childhood, 
except for the few earliest weeks, in a rural seclusion. 
With three innocent little sisters for playmates, sleeping 
always amongst them, and shut up forever in a silent 
garden from all knowledge of poverty, or oppression, or 
outrage, I had not suspected until this moment the true 
complexion of the world in which myself and my sisters 
were living. Henceforward the character of my thoughts 
changed greatly ; for so representative are some acts, that 
one single case of the class is sufficient to throw open 
before you the whole theatre of possibilities in that direc- 
tion. I never heard that the woman accused of this cruelty 
took it at all to heart, even after the event which so im- 
mediately succeeded had reflected upon it a more painful 
emphasis. But for myself, that incident had a lasting 
revolutionary power in coloring my estimate of life. 

So passed away from earth one of those three sisters 
that made up my nursery playmates; and so did my 
acquaintance (if such it could be called) commence with 
mortality. Yet, in fact, I knew little more of mortality 
than that Jane had disappeared. She had gone away ; but 
perhaps she would come back. Happy interval of heaven- 
born ignorance ! Gracious immunity of infancy from sor- 
row disproportioned to its strength ! I was sad for Jane's 
absence. But still in my heart I trusted that she would 
come again. Summer and winter came again — crocuses 
and roses ; why not little Jane } 

Thus easily was healed, then, the first wound in my 
infant heart. Not so the second. For thou, dear, noble 
Elizabeth, around whose ample brow, as often as thy 
sweet countenance rises upon the darkness, I fancy a tiara 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 35 

of light or a gleaming aureola * in token of thy premature 
intellectual grandeur, — -thou whose head, for its superb 
developments, was the astonishment of science,! — thou 
next, but after an interval of happy years, thou also wert 
summoned away from our nursery ; and the night, which 
for me gathered upon that event, ran after my steps far 
into life ; and perhaps at this day I resemble little for good 
or for ill that which else I should have been. Pillar of fire 
that didst go before me to guide and to quicken, — pillar 
of darkness, when thy countenance was turned away to 
God, that didst too truly reveal to my dawning fears the 

* " Anreola." — The aureola is the name given in the " Legends of 
the Christian Saints" to that golden diiulem or circlet of supernat- 
ural light (that glory, as it is commonly called in English) which, 
amongst the great masters of painting in Italy, surrounded the heads 
of Christ and of distinguished saints. 

t '''The astonishment of science.^'' — Her medical attendants were 
Dr. Percival, a well-known literary physician, who had been a cor- 
respondent of Condorcet, D'Alembert, &c., and Mr. Charles White, 
the most distinguished surgeon at that time in the north of England. 
It was he who pronounced her head to be the finest in its development 
of any that he had ever seen — an assertion which, to my own knowl- 
edge, he repeated in after }'ears, and with enthusiasm. That he had 
some acquaintance with the subject may be presumed from this, that, 
at so early a stage of such inquiries, he had published a work on 
human craniology, supported by measurement of heads selected 
from all vainetics of the human species. Meantime, as it would grieve 
me that any trait of what might seem vanity should creep into this 
record, I will admit that my sister died of hydrocephalus ; and it has 
been often supposed that the premature expansion of the intellect 
in cases of that class is altogether morbid — forced on, in fact, by 
the mere stimulation of the disease. I would, however, suggest, as 
a possibility, the very opposite order of relation between the disease 
and the intellectual manifestations. Not the disease may always 
have caused the preternatural growth of the intellect ; but, inversely, 
this growth of the intellect coming on spontaneously, and outrun- 
ning the capacities of the physical structure, may have caused the 
disease. 



36 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 



secret shadow of death, — by what mysterious gravitation was 
it that my heart had been drawn to thine ? Could a child, 
six years old, place any special value upon intellectual for- 
wardness ? Serene and capacious as my sister's mind 
appeared to me upon after review, was that a charm for 
stealing away the heart of an infant ? 0, no ! I think of 
it now with interest, because it lends, in a stranger's ear, 
some justification to the excess of my fondness. But then 
it was lost upon me ; or, if not lost, was perceived only 
through its effects. Hadst thou been an idiot, my sister, 
not the less I must have loved thee, having that capacious 
heart — overflowing, even as mine overflowed, with tender- 
ness ; stung, even as mine was stung, by the necessity of 
loving and being loved. This it was which crowned thee 
with beauty and power. 

" Love, the holy sense, 
Best gift of God, in thee was most intense." 

That lamp of paradise was, for myself, kindled by 
reflection from the living light which burned so stead- 
fastly in thee ; and never but to thee, never again since 
thy departure, had I power or temptation, courage or de- 
sire, to utter the feelings which possessed me. For I was 
the shyest of children ; and, at all stages of life, a natural 
sense of personal dignity held me back from exposing the 
least ray of feelings which I was not encouraged ivhoUy tc 
reveal. 

It is needless to pursue, circumstantially, the course of 
that sickness which carried off my leader and companion. 
She (according to my recollection at this moment) was just 
as near to nine years as I to six. And perhaps this natural 
precedency in authority of years and judgment, united tc 
the tender humility with which she declined to assert it, had 
been amongst the fascinations of her presence. It was upor. 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 37 

a Sunday evening, if such conjectures can be trusted, that 
the spark of fatal fire fell upon that train of predispositions 
to a brain complaint which had hitherto slumbered within 
her. She had been pern', tted to drink tea at the house 
of a laboring man, the father of a favorite female servant. 
The sun had set when she returned, in the company of this 
servant, through meadows reeking with exhalations after a 
fervent day. From that time she sickened. In such cir- 
cumstances, a child, as young as myself, feels no anxieties. 
Looking upon medical men as people privileged, and natu- 
rally commissioned, to make war upon pain and sickness, I 
never had a misgiving about the result. I grieved, indeed, 
that my sister should lie in bed ; I grieved still more to 
hear her moan. But all this appeared to me no more than 
as a night of trouble, on which the dawn would soon arise. 
O moment of darkness and delirium, when the elder 
nurse awakened me from that delusion, and launched God's 
thunderbolt at my heart in the assurance that my sister 
MUST die ! Rightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that 
it " cannot be remembered.'''' * Itself, as a rememberable 
thing, is swallowed up in its own chaos. Blank anarchy 
and confusion of mind fell upon m.e. Deaf and blind I 
was, as I reeled under the revelation. I wish not to recall 
the circumstances of that time, when 7mj agony was at 
its height, and hers, in another sense, was approaching. 
Enough it is to say that all was soon over ; and the morn- 
ing of that day had at last arrived which looked down upon 
her innocent face, sleeping the sleep from which there is 
no awaking, and upon me sorrowing the sorrow for which 
there is no consolation. 

Or. the day after my sister's death, whilst the sweet 

* " I stood in unimaginable trance 

And agony which cannot be remembered." 

Speech of Alhadra, in Coleridge^s Remorse. 



*1 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

ouiple of her brain was yet iinviolated by human scru« 
liny, I formed my own scheme for seeing her once more. 
Not for the world would I have made this known, nor have 
suffered a witness to accompany me. I had never heard 
of feelings that take the name of '' sentimental," nor 
dreamed of such a possibility. But grief, even in a child, 
hates the hght, and shrinks from human eyes. The house 
was large enough to have two staircases; and by one of 
these I knew that about midday, when all would be quiet, 
(for the servants dined at one o'clock,) 1 could steal up into 
her chamber. I imagine that it was about an hour after 
high noon when I reached the chamber door : it was locked, 
but the key was not taken away. Entering, I closed the 
door so softly, that, although it opened upon a hall which 
ascended through all the stories, no echo ran along the 
silent walls. Then, turning round, I sought my sister's 
face. But the bed had been moved, and the back was 
now turned towards myself. Nothing met my eyes but 
one large window, wide open, through which the sun of 
midsummer, at midday, was showering down torrents of 
splendor. The weather was dry, the sky was cloudless, 
the blue depths seemed the express types of infinity ; and 
it was not possible for eye to behold, or for heart to 
conceive, any symbols more pathetic of life and the glory 
of life. 

Let me pause for one instant in approaching a remem- 
brance so affecting for my own mind, to mention, that, in 
the " Opium Confessions," I endeavored to explain the 
reason wh}' death, other conditions remaining the same, is 
more profoundly affecting in summer than in other parts 
of the year — so far, at least, as it is liable to any modifica- 
tion at all from accidents of scenery or season. The reason, 
as I there suggested, lies in the antagonism between the 
tropical redundancy of life in summer and the frozen 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 39 

sterilitiosof the grave. The summer we see, the grave we 
haunt with our thoughts ; the glory is around us, the dark- 
ness is within us; and, the two coining into collision, each 
exalts the other into stronger relief. But, in my case, 
there was even a subtler reason why the summer had this 
intense power of vivifying the spectacle or the thoughts of 
death. And, recollecting it, I am struck with the truth, 
that far more of our deepest thoughts and feelings pass to 
us tin'ough perplexed combinations of concrete objects, pass 
to us as involutes (if I may coin that word) in compound 
experiences incapable of being disentangled, than ever 
reach us directly^ and in their own abstract shapes. It had 
happened, that amongst our vast nurseiy collection of 
books was the Bible, illustrated with many pictures. And 
in long dark evenings, as my three sisters, with myself, sat 
by the firelight round the guard*' of our nursery, no book 
was so much in request among us. It ruled us and 
swayed us as mysteriously as music. Our younger nurse, 
whom we all loved, would sometimes, according to her 
simple powers, endeavor to explain what we found obscure. 
We, the children, were all constitutionally touched with 
pensivcness : the fitful gloom and sudden lambencies of 
the room by firelight suited our evening state of feelings ; 
and they suited, also, the divine revelations of power and 
mysterious beauty which awed us. Above all, the story of 
a just man, — man, and yet not man, real above all things, 
and yet shadowy above all things, — who had suffered the 
passion of death in Palestine, slept upon our minds like 
early dawn upon the waters. The nurse knew and ex- 
plained to us the chief differences in Oriental climates; and 

* " Tlie guard.'^ — I know not whether the word is a local one m 
this sense. What I mean is a sort of fender, four or five feet high, 
which locks up the fire from too near an approach on the part of 
children. 



40 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES, 

all these difTerences (as it happens) express themselves 
more or less, in varying relations to the great accidents 
and powers of summer. The cloudless sunlights of Syria 
— those seemed to argue everlasting summer; the disciples 
plucking the ears of corn — that must be summer; but, 
above all, the very name of Palm Sunday (a festival in the 
English church) troubled me like an anthem. "Sunday !" 
^vhat was that ? That was the day of peace which masked 
another peace deeper than the heart of man can compre- 
hend. " Palms ! " what were they ? That was an equivo- 
cal word ; palms, in the sense of trophies, expressed the 
pomps of life ; palms, as a product of nature, expressed 
the pomps of summer. Yet still even this explanation does 
not suffice ; it was not merely by the peace and by the 
summer, by the deep sound of rest below all rest and of 
ascending glory, that I had been haunted. It was also be- 
cause Jerusalem stood near to those deep images both in 
time and in place. The great event of Jerusalem was at 
hand when Palm Sunday came ; and the scene of that 
Sunday was near in place to Jerusalem. What then was 
Jerusalem ? Did I fancy it to be the omphalos (navel) or 
physical centre of the earth ? Why should that affect me ? 
Such a pretension had once been made for Jerusalem, and 
once for a Grecian city ; and both pretensions had become 
ridiculous, as the figure of the planet became known. 
Yes ; but if not of the earth, yet of mortality; for earth's 
tenant, Jerusalem, had now become the omphalos and 
absolute centre. Yet how r There, on the contrary, 
it was, as we infants understood, that mortality had been 
trampled under foot. True ; but, for that very reason, 
there it was that mortality had opened its very gloomiest 
crater. There it was, indeed, that the human had risen on 
wings from the grave ; but, for that reason, there also it 
was that the divine had been swallowed up by the abyss ; 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 41 

the lesser star could not rise before the greater should sub- 
mit to eclipse. Summer, therefore, had connected itself 
with death, not merely as a mode of antagonism, but also 
as a phenomenon brought into intricate relations with death 
by scriptual scenery and events. 

Out of this digression, for the purpose of showing how 
inextricably my feelings and images of death were en- 
tangled with those of summer, as connected with Palestine 
and Jerusalem, let me come back to the bed chamber of 
my sister. From the gorgeous sunlight I turned around to 
the corpse. There lay the sweet childish figure ; there 
the angel face ; and, as people usually fancy, it was said 
in the house that no features had suffered any change. 
Had they not? The forehead, indeed, — the serene and 
noble forehead, — that might be the same ; but the frozen 
eyelids, the darkness that seemed to steal from beneath 
them, the marble lips, the stiffening hands, laid palm to 
palm, as if repeating the supplications of closing anguish, 
— could these be mistaken for life? Had it been so, 
wherefore did I not spring to those heavenly lips with tears 
and never-ending kisses ? But so it was not. I stood 
checked for a moment ; awe, not fear, fell upon me ; and, 
whilst I stood, a solemn wind began to blow — the saddest 
that ear ever heard. It was a wind that might have swept 
the fields of mortality for a thousand centuries. Many 
times since, upon summer days, when the sun is about the 
hottest, I have remarked the same wind arising and utter- 
ing the same hollow, solemn, Memnonian,* but saintly 

=* ^^ Memvom'an." — For the sake of many readers, whose hearts 
may go along eamestly with a re-cord of hifant sorrow, hut whose 
course of life has not allowed them much leisure for study, I pause to 
explain — that the head of Memnon, in the British Museum, that 
sublime head which wears upon its lips a smile coextensive with all 
time and all space, an -ZEonian smile of gracious love and Pan-like 



42 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

swell : it is in this world the one great audille symbol of 
eternity. And three times in my life have I happened to 
hear the same sound in the same circumstances — namely, 
when standing between an open window and a dead body 
on a summer day. 

Instantly, when my ear caught this vast iEolian intona- 
tion, when my eye filled with the golden fulness of life, 

mystery, the most diffusive and pathetically divine that the hand of 
man has created, is represented, on the authority of ancient traditions, 
to have, uttered at sunrise, or soon after as the sun's rays had accumu- 
lated heat enough to rarefy the air within certain cavities in the bust, 
a solemn and dirge-like series of intonations ; the simple explanation 
being, in its general outline, this — that sonorous cun-ents of air 
were produced by causing chambers of cold and heavy air to press 
upon other collections of air, warmed, and therefore rarefied, and 
therefore yielding readily to the pressure of heavier air. Currents 
being thus established by artificial arrangements of tubes, a certain 
succession of notes could be concerted and sustained. Near the Red 
Sea lies a chain of sand hills, which, by a natural system of grooves 
inosculating with each other, become vocal under changing circum- 
stances in the position of the sun, &c. I knew a boy who, upon ob- 
serving steadily, and reflecting upon a phenomenon that met him in 
his daily experience, viz., that tubes, through which a stream of 
water was passing, gave out a very different sound according to the 
varying slenderness or fulness of the current, devised an instrument 
that yielded a rude hydraulic gamut of sounds ; and, indeed, upon 
this simple phenomenon is founded the use and power of the stetho- 
scope. For exactly as a thin thread of water, trickling through a 
leaden tube, yields a stridulous and plaintive sound compared with 
the full volume of sound corresponding to the full volume of water, 
on parity of principles, nobody will doubt that the current of 
blood pouring through the tubes of the human frame will utter to the 
learned ear, wlien armed Avith the stethoscope, an elaborate gamut or 
compass of music recording the ravages of disease, or the glorious 
plenitudes of health, as faithfully as the cavities within this ancient 
Memnonian bust reported this mighty event of sunrise to the rejoi- 
cing world of light and life ; or, again, under the sad passion of the 
dying day, uttered the sweet requiem that belonged to its departure. 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 43 

the pomps of the heavens above, or the glory of the flowers 
below, and turning when it settled upon the frost which 
overspread my sister's face, instantly a trance fell upon me. 
A vault seemed to open in the zenith of the far blue sky, a 
shaft which ran up forever. I, in spirit, rose as if on bil- 
lows that aiso ran up the shaft forever ; and the billows 
seemed to pursue the throne of God ; but that also ran be- 
fore us and fled away continually. The flight and the pursuit 
seemed to go on forever and ever. Frost gathering frost, 
some Sarsar wind of death, seemed to repel me ; some 
mighty relation between God and death dimly struggled to 
evolve itself from the dreadful antagonism between them ; 
shadowy meanings even yet continued to exercise and tor- 
nent, in dreams, the deciphering oracle within me. I slept 
— for how long I cannot say : slowly I recovered my self- 
possession ; and, when I woke, found myself standing, as 
before, close to my sister's bed. 

1 have reason to believe that a very long interval had 
elapsed during this wandering or suspension of my perfect 
mind. When I returned to myself, there was a foot (or I 
fancied so) on the stairs. I was alarmed ; for, if any body 
had detected me, means would have been taken to prevent 
my coming again. Hastily, therefore, I kissed the lips that 
I should kiss no more, and slunk, like a guilty thing, with 
stealthy steps from the room. Thus perished the vision, 
loveliest amongst all the shows which earth has revealed to 
me ; thus mutilated was the parting which should have 
lasted forever ; tainted thus with fear was that fareweP 
sacred to love and grief, to perfect love and to grief tha' 
could not be healed. 

O Ahasuerus, everlasting Jew ! * fable or not a fable, 

* ^'■Everlasting Jew?'' — Der excige Jude — which is the common 
German expression for " The Wandering Jew," and subliraer even 
than our own. 



44 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

thou, when first starting on thy endless pilgrimage of woe,— 
thou, when first flying through the gates of Jerusalem, and 
vainly yearning to leave the pursuing curse behind thee, — 
couldst not more certainly in the words of Christ have read 
thy doom of endless sorrow, than I when passing forever 
from my sister's room. The worm was at my heart ; and, 
I may say, the worm that could not die. Man is doubtless 
one by some subtle nexus^ some system of links, that we 
cannot perceive, extending from the new-born infant to the 
superannuated dotard ; but, as regards many affections and 
passions incident to his nature at different stages, he is not 
one, but an intermitting creature, ending and beginning 
anew : the unity of man, in this respect, is coextensive 
only with the particular stage to which the passion belongs. 
Some passions, as that of sexual love, are celestial by one 
half of their origin, animal and earthly by the other half. 
These will not survive their own appropriate stage. But 
love, which is altogether holy, like that between two 
children, is privileged to revisit by glimpses the silence and 
the darkness of declining years ; and, possibly, this final 
experience in my sister's bed room, or some other in which 
her innocence was concerned, may rise again for me to 
illuminate the clouds of death. 

On the day following this which I have recorded came 
a body of medical men to examine the brain and the par- 
ticular nature of the complaint, for in some of its symp- 
toms it had shown perplexing anomalies. An hour after 
the strangers had withdrawn, I crept again to the room; 
but the door was now locked, the key had been taken 
away, and I was shut out forever. 

Then came the funeral. I, in the ceremonial character 
of mourner^ was carried thither. I was put into a carriage 
with some gentlemen whom I did not know. They were 
kind and attentive to me ; but naturally they talked of 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 45 

things disconnected with the occasion, and iheir conver- 
sation was a torment. At the church, 1 was told to hold 
a white handkerchief to my eyes. Empty hypocrisy ! 
What need had he of masks or mockeries, whose heart 
died within him at every word that was uttered } During 
that part of the service which passed within the church, 
I nriade an effort to attend ; but I sank back continually 
into m} own solitary darkness, and I heard little con- 
sciously, except some fugitive strains from the sublime 
chapter of St. Paul, which in England is always read at 
bunais.* 

Lastly came that magnificent liturgical service which 
the English church performs at the side of the grave ; 
for this church does not forsake her dead so long as they 
continue in the upper air, but waits for her last "sweet 
and solemn t farewell" at the side of the grave. There is 
exposed once again, and for the last time, the coffin. All 
eyes survey the record of name, of sex, of age, and the 
day of departure from earth — records how shadowy I and 
dropped into darkness as if messages addressed to worms. 
Almost at the very last comes the symbolic ritual, tearing 
and shattering the heart with volleying discharges, peal 
after peal, from the final artillery of woe. The coffin is 
lowered into its home ; it has disappeared from all eyes 
but those that look down into the abyss of the grave. 
The sacristan stands ready, with his shovel of earth and 
stones. The priest's voice is heard once more, — earth to 

* First Epistle to Corinthians, chap, xv., beginning at ver. 20. 

t This beautiful expression, I am pretty certain, must belong to 
Mrs. Trollope ; I read it, probably, in a tale of hers connected with 
the backwoods of America, where the absence of such a farewell 
must unspeakably aggravate the gloom at any rate belonging to a 
household separation of that eternal character occurring amongst the 
shadows of those mighty forests. 



46 



AtlTOBlOGRAPinC SKETCHES. 



earthy — and immediately the dread rattle ascends from the 
lid of the coffin ; ashes to ashes — and again the killing 
sound is heard ; dust to dust — and the farewell volley an- 
nounces that the grave, the coffin, the face are scaled up 
forever and ever. 

Grief ! thou art classed amongst the depressing passions. 
And true it is that thou humblest to the dust, but also 
thou exaltest to the clouds. Thou shakest as with ague, 
but also thou steadiest like frost. Thou sickenest the 
heart, but also thou healest its infirmities. Among the 
very foremost of mine was morbid sensibility to shame. 
And, ten years afterwards, I used to throw my self- 
reproaches with regard to that infirmity into this shape, 
viz., that if I were summoned to seek aid for a perishing 
fellow-creature, and that I could obtain that aid only by 
facing a vast -company of critical or sneering faces, t 
might, perhaps, shrink basely from the duty. It is true 
that no such case had ever actually occurred ; so that it 
was a mere romance of casuistry to tax myself with cow- 
ardice so shocking. But, to feel a doubt, was to feel con- 
demnation ; and the crime that might have been was, in 
my eyes, the crime that had been. Now, however, all was 
changed ; and for any thing which regarded my sister's 
memory, in one hour I received a new heart. Once in 
Westmoreland I saw a case resembling it. I saw a ewe 
suddenly put off and abjure her own nature, in a service 
of love — yes, slough it as completely as ever serpent 
sloughed his skin. Her lamb had fallen into a deep trench, 
from which all escape was hopeless without the aid of man. 
And to a man she advanced, bleating clamorously, until 
he followed her and rescued her beloved. Not less was 
the change in myself. Fifty thousand sneering faces^ 
would not have troubled me now in any office of ten- 
derness to my sister's memory. Ten legions would not 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 47 

have repelled me from seeking her, if there had been 
a chance that she could be found. Mockery ! it was lost 
upon me. Laughter ! I valued it not. And when I was 
taunted insultingly with " my girlish tears," that word 
' girlish " had no sting for me, except as a verbal echo 
to the one eternal thought of my heart — that a girl was 
the sweetest thing which I, in my short life, had known ; 
that a girl it was who had crowned the earth with beauty, 
and had opened to my thirst fountains of pure celestial love, 
from which, in this world, I was to drink no more. 

Now began to unfold themselves the consolations of 
solitude, those consolations which only I was destined to 
taste ; now, therefore, began to open upon me those fasci- 
nations of solitude, which, when acting as a co-agency with 
unresisted grief, end in the paradoxical result of making 
out of grief itself a luxury ; such a luxury as finally be- 
comes a snare, overhanging life itself, and the energies of 
life, with growing menaces. All deep feelings of a chronic 
class agree in this, that they seek for solitude, and are fed 
by solitude. Deep grief, deep love, how naturally do these 
ally themselves with religious feeling ! and all three — 
love, grief, religion — are haunters of solitary places. 
Love, grief, and the mystery of devotion, — what were 
these without solitude ? All day long, when it was not 
impossible for me to do so, I sought the most silent and 
sequestered nooks in the grounds about the house or in the 
neighboring fields. The awful stillness oftentimes of sum- 
mer noons, when no winds were abroad, the appealing 
silence of gray or misty afternoons, — these were fascina- 
tions as of witchcraft. Into the woods, into the desert air, 
I gazed, as if some comfort lay hid in thc7n. I wearied 
the heavens with my inquest of beseeching looks. Obsti- 
nately I tormented the blue depths with my scrutiny, 
sweeping them forever with my eyes, and searching them 



48 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

for one angelic face that might, perhaps, have permission 
to reveal itself for a moment. 

At this time, and under this impulse of rapacious grief, 
that grasped at what it could not obtain, the faculty of 
shaping images in the distance out of slight elements, and 
grouping them after the yearnings of the heart, grew upon 
me in morbid excess. And I recall at the present moment 
one instance of that sort, which may show how merely 
shadows, or a gleam of brightness, or nothing at all, could 
furnish a sufficient basis for this creative faculty. 

On Sunday mornings I went with the rest of my fam- 
ily to church : it was a church on the ancient model of 
England, having aisles, galleries,* organ, all things an- 
cient and venerable, and the proportions majestic. Here, 
whilst the congregation knelt through the long litany, as 
often as we came to that passage, so beautiful amongst 
many that are so, where God is supplicated on behalf of 
" all sick persons and young children," and that he would 
*' show his pity upon all prisoners and captives," I wept in 
secret ; and raising my streaming eyes to the upper win- 
dows of the galleries, saw, on days when the sun was shin- 
ing, a spectacle as affecting as ever prophet can have 
beheld. The sides of the windows were rich with storied 
glass ; through the deep purples and crimsons streamed the 
golden light ; emblazonries of heavenly illumination (from 
the sun) mingling with the earthly emblazonries (from art 
and its gorgeous coloring) of what is grandest in man. 
There were the apostles that had trampled upon earth, and 
the glories of earth, out of celestial love to man. There 

* " Galleries?'' — These, thoufjh condemned on some grounds by 
the restorers of authentic church architecture, have, nevertheless, 
this one advantage — that, when the heifjht of a church is that dimen- 
sion which most of all expresses its sacred character, galleries ex 
pound and interpret that height. 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD. 49 

were the martyrs that had borne witness to the truth through 
flames, through torments, and through armies of fierce, 
insulting faces. There were the saints who, under intoler- 
able pangs, had glorified God by meek submission to his 
will. And all the time, whilst this tumult of sublime me- 
morials held on as the deep chords from some accompani- 
ment in the bass, I saw through the wide central field of the 
window, where the glass was Mwcolored, white, fleecy 
clouds sailing over the azure depths of the sky : were it 
but a fragment or a hint of such a cloud, immediately 
under the flash of my sorrow-haunted eye, it grew and 
shaped itself into visions of beds with white lawny curtains ; 
and in the beds lay sick children, dying children, that were 
tossing in anguish, and weeping clamorously for death. 
God, for some mysterious reason, could not suddenly re- 
lease them from their pain ; but he suffered the beds, as it 
seemed, to rise slowly through the clouds ; slowly the beds 
ascended into the chambers of the air; slowly, also, his 
arms descended from the heavens, that he and his young 
children, whom in Palestine, once and forever, he had 
blessed, though they must pass slowly through the dread- 
ful chasm of separation, might yet meet the sooner. These 
visions were self-sustained. These visions needed not 
that any sound should speak to me, or music mould 
my feelings. The hint from the litany, the fragment 
from the clouds, — those and the storied windows were 
sufficient. But not the less the blare of the tumultuous or- 
gan wrought its own separate creations. And oftentimes 
in anthems, when the mighty instrument threw its vast 
columns of sound, fierce yet melodious, over the voices of 
the choir, — high in arches, when it seemed to rise, sur- 
mounting and overriding the strife of the vocal parts, and 
gathering by strong coercion the total storm into unity, — 
sometimes I seemed to rise and walk triumphantly upon 
4 



50 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 



those clouds which, but a moment before, I had looked up 
to as mementoes of prostrate sorrow ; yes, sometimes under 
the transfigurations of music, felt of grief itself as of a 
fiery chariot for mounting victoriously above the causes 
of grief. 

God speaks to children, also, in dreams, and by the 
oracles that lurk in darkness. But in solitude, above all 
things, when made vocal to the meditative heart by the 
truths and services of a national church, God holds with 
children " communion undisturbed." Solitude, though it 
may be silent as light, is, like light, the mightiest of 
agencies ; for solitude is essential to man. All men come 
into this world alone ; all leave it alone. Even a little 
child has a dread, whispering consciousness, that, if he 
should be summoned to travel into God's presence, no 
gentle nurse will be allowed to lead him by the hand, nor 
mother to carry him in her arms, nor little sister to share 
his trepidations. King and priest, warrior and maiden, 
philosopher and child, all must walk those mighty galleries 
alone. The solitude, therefore, which in this world appalls 
or fascinates a child's heart, is but the echo of a far deeper 
solitude, through which already he has passed, and of 
another solitude, deeper still, through which he has to pass : 
reflex of one solitude — prefiguration of another. 

O burden of solitude, that cleavest to man through 
every stage of his being ! in his birth, which has been — 
in his life, which is — In his death, which shall be — 
mighty and essential solitude ! that wast, and art, and art 
to be ; thou broodest, like the Spirit of God moving upon 
the surface of the deeps, over every heart that sleeps in 
the nurseries of Christendom. Like the vast laboratory of 
the air, which, seeming to be nothing, or less than the 
shadow of a shade, hides within itself the principles of all 
things, solitude for the meditating child is the Agrippa'a 



DREAM ECHOES OF THESE INFANT EXPERIENCES. 51 

mirror of the unseen universe. Deep is the solitude of 
millions who, with hearts welling forth love, have none to 
love them. Deep is the solitude of those wiio, under secret 
griefs, have none to pity them. Deep is the solitude of 
those who, fighting with doubts or darkness, have none to 
counsel them. But deeper than the deepest of these soli- 
tudes is that which broods over childhood under the passion 
of sorrow — bringing before it, at intervals, the final soli- 
tude which watches for it, and is waiting for it within the 
gates of death, O mighty and essential solitude, that 
wast, and art, and art to be, thy kingdom is made perfect 
in the grave ; but even over those that keep watch outside 
the grave, like myself, an infant of six years old, thou 
Btretchest out a sceptre of fascination. 



DREAM ECHOES OF THESE INFANT EXPERIENCES. 

\Notice to the reader. — The sun. in rising or setting, Avould produce 
little effect if he were defrauded of his rays and their infinite rever- 
berations. " Seen through a fog," says Sara Coleridge, the noble 
daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, " the golden, beaming sun 
looks like a dull orange, or a red billiard ball." — Infrod. to Biog. Lit., 
p. clxii. And, upon this same analogy, psychological experiences of 
deep suffering or joy first attain their entire fulness of expression 
when they are reverberated from dreams. The reader must, there- 
fore, suppose me at Oxford ; more than twelve years are gone by ; I 
am in the glory of youth : but I have now first tampered with opium ; 
and now first the agitations of my childhood reopened in strength ; 
now first they swept in upon the brain with power, and the grandeur 
of recovered lif.^] 

Once again, after twelve years' interval, the nursery of 
my childhood expanded before me : my sister was moaning 
in bed ; and I was beginning to be restless with fears not 



52 AUTOBIOGKAPHIC SKETCHES. 

intelligible to myself. Once again the elder LMrse,but now 
dilated to colossal proportions, stood as upon some Grecian 
stage with her uplifted hand, and, like the superb Medea 
towering amongst her children in the nursery at Corinth,* 
smote me senseless to the ground. Again I am in the 
chamber with my sister's corpse, again the pomps of life 
rise up in silence, the glory of summer, the Syrian sun- 
lights, the frost of death. Dream forms itself mysteri- 
ously within dream ; within these Oxford dreams remoulds 
itself continually the trance in my sister's chamber — the 
blue heavens, the everlasting vault, the soaring billows, 
the throne steeped in the thought (but not the sight) of 
" Who might sit thereon ;" the flight, the pursuit, the irre- 
coverable steps of my return to earth. Once more the 
funeral procession gathers; the priest, in his white surplus, 
stands waiting with a book by the side of an open grave ; 
the sacristan is waiting wtth his shovel ; the coffin has sunk ; 
the dust to dust has descended. Again I was in the church 
on a heavenly Sunday morning. The golden sunlight of 
God slept amongst the heads of his apostles, his martyrs, 
his saints ; the fragment from the litany, the fragment from 
the clouds, awoke again the lawny beds that went up to 
scale the heavens — awoke again the shadowy arms that 
moved downward to meet them. Once again arose the 
swell of the anthem, the burst of the hallelujah chorus, 
the storm, the trampling movement of the choral passion, 
the agitation of my own trembling sympathy, the tumult of 
the choir, the wrath of the organ. Once more 1, that 
wallowed in the dust, became he that rose up to the clouds. 
And now all was bound up into unity ; the first state and 
the last were melted into each other as in some sunny 
glorifying haze. For high in heaven hovered a gleaming 
host of faces, veiled with wings, around the pillows of the 

* Euripides. 



DREAM ECHOES FIFTY YEARS LATER. 53 

dying children. And such beings sympathize equally with 
sorrow that grovels and with sorrow that soars. Such 
beings pity alike the children that are languishing in death, 
and the' children that live only to languish in tears. 



DREAM ECHOES FIFTY YEARS LATER. 

[In this instance the echoes, that rendered back the infant experi- 
ence, might be interpreted by the reader as connected with a real 
ascent of the Brocken ; which was not the case. It was an ascent 
through a.ll its circumstances executed in dreams, which, under ad- 
vanced stages in the development of opium, repeat with marvellous 
accuracy the longest succession of phenomena derived either from 
reading or from actual experience. That softening and spiritualizing 
haze which belongs at any rate to the action of dreams, and to the 
transfigurings worked upon troubled remembrances by retrospects so 
vast as those of fifty years, was in this instance greatly aided to my 
own feelings by the alliance with the ancient phantom of the forest 
mountain in North Germany. The playfulness of the scene is the 
very evoker of the solemn remembrances that lie hidden below. 
The half-sportive interlusory revealings of the symbolic tend to the 
same effect. One part of the effect from the symbolic is dependent 
upon the great catholic principle of the Idem in alio. The symbol 
restores the theme, but under new combinations of form or coloring; 
gives back, but changes ; restoi-es, but idealizes.] 

Ascend with me on this dazzling Whitsunday the 
Brocken of North Germany. The dawn opened in cloud- 
less beauty ; it is a dawn of bridal June ; but, as the 
hours advanced, her youngest sister April, that sometimes 
cares little for racing across both frontiers of May, — the 
rearward frontier, and the vanward frontier, — frets the 
bridal lady's sunny temper with sallies of wheeling and 
careering showers, flying and pursuing, opening and clos- 
ing, hiding and restoring. On such a morning, and 



54 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

reaching the summits of the forest mountain about sun- 
rise, we shall have one chance the more for seeing the 
famous Spectre of the Brocken.* Who and what is he ? 

* " Spectre of the Brochen." — This very striking phenomenon has 
been continually described b}' writers, botli German and English, for 
the last fifty years. Many readers, however, will not have met with 
these descx-iptions ; and on their account I add a few words in expla- 
nation, referring them for the best scientific comment on the case to 
Sir David Brewster's " Natural Magic." The spectre takes the shape 
of a human figure, or, if the visitors are more than one, then the 
spectres multiply ; they arrange themselves on the blue ground of 
the sky, or the dark ground of any clouds that may be in the right 
quarter, or perhaps they are strongly relieved against a curtain of 
rock, at a distance of some miles, and always exhibiting gigantic 
proportions. At first, from the distance and the colossal size, every 
spectator supposes the appearances to be quite independent of him- 
self. But very soon he is surprised to obser\'^e his own motions and 
gestures mimicked, and wakens to the conviction that the phantom 
is but a dilated reflection of himself. This Titan amongst the appa- 
ritions of earth is exceedingly capricious, vanishing abruptly for 
reasons best known to himself, and more coy in coming forward than 
the Lady Echo of Ovid. One reason why he is seen so seldom must 
be ascribed to the concurrence of conditions under which only the 
phenomenon can be manifested ; the sun must be near to the horizon, 
(which, of itself, implies a time of day inconvenient to a person start- 
ing from a station as distant as Elbingerode ;) the spectator must 
have his back to the sun ; and the air must contain some vapor, but 
partially distributed. Coleridge ascended the Brocken on the Whit- 
sunday of 1799, with a party of English students from Goettingen, 
but failed to see the phantom ; afterwards in England (and under the 
three same conditions) he saw a much rarer phenomenon, which he 
described in the following lines : — 

" Such thou art as when 
The woodman winding westward up the glen 
At wintry dawn, when o'er the sheep-track's maze 
The viewless snow mist weaves a glistening haze, 
Sees full before him, gliding without tread. 
An image with a glory round its head ; 
This shade he worships for its golden hues, 
And makes (not knowing) that which he pursues." 



DREAM ECHOES FIFTY YEARS LATER. 55 

He is a solitary apparition, in the sense of loving solitude ; 
else he is not always solitary in his personal manifestations, 
but, on proper occasions, has been known to unmask a 
strength quite sufficient to alarm those who had been 
insulting him. 

Now, in order to test the nature of this mysterious 
apparition, we will try two or three experiments upon 
him. What we fear, and with some reason, is, that, as he 
lived so many ages with foul pagan sorcerers, and wit- 
nessed so many centuries of dark idolatries, his heart may 
have been corrupted, and that even now his faith may be 
wavering or impure. We will try. 

Make the sign of the cross, and observe whether he 
repeats it, (as on Whitsunday* he surely ought to do.) 
Look ! he does repeat it ; but these driving April showers 
perplex the images, and that^ perhaps, it is which gives 
him the air of one who acts reluctantly or evasively. 
Now, again, the sun shines more brightly, and the showers 
have all swept off like squadrons of cavalry to the rear. 
We will try him again. 

Pluck an anemone, one of these many anemones which 
once was called the sorcerer's flower,t and bore a part, 
perhaps, in this horrid ritual of fear ; carry it to that 
stone which mimics the outline of a heathen altar, and 
once was called the sorcerer's altar ;t then, bending your 

* " On Whitsundai/." — It is singular, and perhaps owing to the 
temperature and weather likely to prevail in that early part of sum- 
mer, that more appearances of the spectre have been witnessed on 
Whitsunday than on any other day. 

t " The sorcerer^s flower,^'' and " The sorcerer's alta?-." — These are 
names still clinging to the anemone of the Brocken, and to an altar- 
shaped fragment of granite near one of the summits; and there is no 
doubt that they both connect themselves, through links of ancient 
tradition, with the gloomy realities of paganism, when the whole 
Hartz and the Brocken formed for a very long time the last asylum 
to a ferocious but perishing idolatry. 



56 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

knee, and raising your right hand to God, say, " Fathei 
which art in heaven, this lovely anemone, that once glori- 
fied the worship of fear, has travelled back into thy fold ; 
this altar, which once reeked with bloody rites to Cortho, 
has long been rebaptized into thy holy service. The 
darkness is gone ; the cruelty is gone which the darkness 
bred ; the moans have passed away which the victims ut- 
tered ; the cloud has vanished which once sat continually 
upon their graves — cloud of protestation that ascended for- 
ever to thy throne from the tears of the defenceless, and 
from the anger of the just. And lo ! we — I thy servant, 
and this dark phantom, whom for one hour on this thy fes- 
tival of Pentecost I make my servant — render thee united 
worship in this thy recovered temple." 

Lo ! the apparition plucks an anemone, and places it on 
the altar ; he also bends his knee, he also raises his right 
hand to God. Dumb he is ; but sometimes the dumb serve 
God acceptably. Yet still it occurs to you, that perhaps on 
this high festival of the Christian church he may have been 
overruled by supernatural influence into confession of his 
homage, having so often been made to bow and bend his 
knee at murderous rites. In a service of religion he may 
be timid. Let us try him, therefore, with an earthly pas- 
sion, where he will have no bias either from favor or 
from fear. 

If, then, once in childhood you suffered an affliction that 
was ineffable, — if once, when powerless to face such an 
enemy, you were summoned to fight with the tiger that 
couches within the separations of the grave, — in that case, 
after the example of Judaea,* sitting under her palm tree to 
weep, but sitting with her head veiled, do you also veil 
your head. Many years are passed away since then ; and 

* On the Roman coins. 



DREAM ECHOES FIFTY YEARS LATER. 57 

perhaps you were a little ignorant thing at that time, hardly 
above six years old. But your heart was deeper than the 
Danube ; and, as was your love, so was your grief. Many 
years are gone since that darkness settled on your head ; 
many summers, many winters ; yet still its shadows wheel 
round upon you at intervals, like these April showers upon 
this glory of bridal June. Therefore now, on this dove- 
like morning of Pentecost, do you veil your head like 
Judoea in memory of that transcendent woe, and in testi- 
mony that, indeed, it surpassed all utterance of words. 
Immediately you see that the apparition of the Brocken 
veils his head, after the model of Judaea weeping under 
her palm tree, as if he also had a human heart ; and as if 
he also, in childhood, having suffered an affliction which 
was ineffable, wished by these mute symbols to breathe a 
sigh towards heaven in memory of that transcendent woe, 
and by way of record, though many a year after, that it 
was indeed unutterable by words. 



CHAPTER II. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 

So, then, one chapter in my life had finished. Already, 
before the completion of my sixth year, this first chapter 
had run its circle, had rendered up its music to the final 
chord — might seem even, like ripe fruit from a tree, to 
have detached itself forever from all the rest of the arras 
that was shaping itself within my loom of life. No Eden 
of lakes and forest lawns, such as the mirage suddenly 
evokes in Arabian sands, — no pageant of air-built battle- 
ments and towers, that ever burned in dream-like silence 
amongst the vapors of summer sunsets, mocking and 
repeating w^ith celestial pencil " the fuming vanities of 
earth," — could leave behind it the mixed impression of so 
much truth combined with so much absolute delusion. 
Truest of all things it seemed by the excess of that happi- 
ness which it had sustained : most fraudulent it seemed of 
all things, when looked back upon as some mysterious 
parenthesis in the current of life, " self-withdrawn into a 
wonderous depth," hurrying as if with headlong malice to 
extinction, and alienated by every feature from the new 
aspects of life that seemed to await me. Were it not in 
the bitter corrosion of heart that I was called upon to face, 
I should have carried over to the present no connecting link 

58 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 59 

whatever from the past, Mere reality in this fretting it 
was, and the nndeniableness of its too potent remembrances, 
that forbade me to regard this burned-out inaugural chapter 
of my life as no chapter at all, but a pure exhalation of 
dreams. Misery is a guaranly of truth too substantial to 
be refused ; else, by its determinate evanescence, tiie total 
experience would have worn the character of a fantastic 
illusion. 

Well it was for me at this period, if well it were for me 
to live at all, that from any continued contemplation of my 
misery 1 was forced to wean myself, and suddenly to 
assume the harness of life. Else under the morbid lan- 
guishing of grief, and of wha' the Romans called desiderium, 
(the yearning too obstinate after one irrecoverable face,) 
too probably 1 should have pmed away into an early grave. 
Harsh was my awaking; but the rough febrifuge which 
this awaking administered broke the strength of my sickly 
reveries through a period of more than two years ; by 
which time, under the natura. expansion of my bodily 
strength, the danger had passed over. 

In the first chapter I have rendered solemn thanks foi 
having been trained amongst the gentlest of sisters, and not 
under " horrid pugilistic brothers." Meantime, one such 
brother 1 had, senior by much to myself, and the stormiest 
of his class : him 1 will immediately present to the reader ; 
for up to this point of my narrative he may be described as 
a stranger even to myself. Odd as it sounds, I had at this 
time both a brother and a father, neither of whom would 
have been able to challenge me as a relative, nor I him, 
had we happened to meet on the public roads. 

In my father's case, this arose from the accident of his 
having lived abroad for a space that, measured against my 
life, was a very long one. First, he lived for months in 
Portugal, at Lisbon, and at Cintra ; next in Madeira ; then 



60 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

in the West Indies ; sometimes in Jamaica, sometimes in 
St. Kitt's; courting the supposed benefit of hot climates in 
his complaint of pulmonary consumption. He had, indeed, 
repeatedly returned to England, and met my mother at 
watering-places on the south coast of Devonshire, &c. 
But I, as a younger child, had not been one of the party 
selected for such excursions from home. And now, at last, 
when all had proved unavailing, he was coming home to 
die amongst his family, in his thirty-ninth year. My 
mother had gone to await his arrival at the port (whatever 
port) to which the West India packet should bring him ; 
and amongst the deepest recollections which I connect 
with that period, is one derived from the night of his 
arrival at Greenhay. 

It was a summer evening of unusual solemity. The 
servants, and four of us children, were gathered for hours, 
on the lawn before the house, listening for the sound of 
wheels. Sunset came — nine, ten, eleven o'clock, and 
nearly another hour had passed — without a warning sound ; 
for Greenhay, being so solitaiy a house, formed a terminus 
ad quem^ beyond which was nothing but a cluster of cot- 
tages, composing the little hamlet of Greenhill ; so that any 
sound of wheels coming from the winding lane which then 
connected us with the Rusholme Road, carried with it, of 
necessity, a warning summons to prepare for visitors at 
Greenhay. No such summons had yet reached us; it was 
nearly midnight; and, for the last time, it was determined 
that we should move in a body out of the grounds, on the 
chance of meeting the travelling party, if, at so late an 
hour, it could yet be expected to arrive. In fact, to our 
general surprise, we met it almost immediately, but coming 
at so slow a pace, that the fall of the horses' feet was not 
audible until we were close upon them. I mention the 
case for the sake of the undying impressions which 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 61 

connected themselves with the circumstances. The first 
notice of the approach was the sudden emerging of horses' 
heads from the deep gloom of the shady lane ; the next 
was the mass of white pillows against which the dying 
patient was reclining. The hearse-like pace at which the 
carriage moved recalled the overwhelming spectacle of 
that funeral which had so lately formed part in the most 
memorable event of my life. But these elements of awe, 
that might at any rate have struck forcibly upon the mind 
of a child, were for me, in my condition of morbid 
nervousness, raised into abiding grandeur by the antecedent 
experiences of that particular summer night. The listen- 
hig for hours to the sounds from horses' hoofs upon distant 
roads, rising and falling, caught and lost, upon the gentle 
undulation of such fitful airs as mitj^ht be stirring — the 
peculiar solemnity of the hours succeeding to sunset — the 
gloiy of the dying day — the gorgeousness which, by 
description, so well I knew of sunset in those West Indian 
islands from which my father was returning — the knowl- 
edge that he returned only to die — the almighty pomp in 
which this great idea of Death apparelled itself to my 
young sorrowing heart — the corresponding pomp in which 
the antagonistic idea, not less mysterious, of life, rose, as 
if on wings, amidst tropic glories and floral pagcan ries 
that seemed even more solemn and pathetic than the 
vapory plumes and trophies of mortality, — all this chorus 
of restless images, or of suggestive thoughts, gave to my 
father's return, which else had been fitted only to interpose 
one transitory red-letter day in the calendar of a child, the 
sha'dowy power of an ineffaceable agency among my 
dreams. This, indeed, was the one sole memoiial which 
restores my father's image to me as a personal reality ; 
otherwise he would have been for me a bare nominis 
umbra. He languished, indeed, for weeks upon a sofa ; 



62 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

and, during that interval, it happened naturally, from my 
repose of manners, that I was a privileged visitor to him 
throughout his waking hours. I was also present at his 
bedside in the closing hour of his life, which exhaled quiet- 
ly, amidst snatches of delirious conversation with some 
imaginaiy visitors. 

My brother was a stranger from causes quite as little to 
be foreseen, but seeming quite as natural after they had 
really occurred. In an early stage of his career, he had 
been found wholly unmanageable. His genius for mis- 
chief amounted to inspiration ; it was a divine affialus 
which drove him in that d'rection ; and such was his ca- 
pacity for riding in whirlwinds and directing storms, that 
he made it his trade to create them, as a t'eqxXijyi^QaTa 
Zev:, a cloud-compelling Jove, in order that he might di- 
rect them. For this, and other reasons, he had been sent 
to the Grammar School of Louth, in Lincolnshire — one 
of those many old classic institutions which form the pecu- 
liar* glory of England. To box, and to box under the 
severest restraint of honorable laws, w^as in those days a 
mere necessity of schoolboy life at puhlic schools ; and 
hence the superior manliness, generosity, and self-control 
of those generally who had benefited by such discipline — 
so systematically hostile to all meanness, pusillanimity, or 
indirectness. Cowper, in his " Tyrocinium," is far from 
doing justice to our great public schools. Himself disqual- 



* '■'■Peculiar.'''' — Viz., as e??f/oweo? foundations to which those resort 
who are rich and pay, and those also who, being poor, cannot paj^ 
or cannot pay so much. This most honorable distinction amongst 
the services of England from ancient times to the interests of educa 
tion — a senice absolutely unajiproached by any one nation of Chris- 
tendom — is amongst the foremost cases of that remarkable class 
which make England, whilst often the most aristoci'atic, yet also for 
many noble puii)oses, the most democratic of lands. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 63 

ified, by delicacy of temperament, for reaping the benefits 
from such a warfare, and having suffered too much in his 
own Westminster experience, he could not judge them 
from an impartial station ; but I, though ill enough adapted 
to an atmosphere so stormy, yet having tried both classes 
of schools, public and private, am compelled in mere con- 
science to give my vote (and, if I had a thousand votes, to 
give all my votes) for the former. 

Fresh from such a training as this, and at a time when 
his additional five or six years availed nearly to make his 
age the double of mine, my brother very naturally de- 
spised me ; and, from his exceeding frankness, he took no 
pains to conceal that he did. Why should he ? Who was 
it that could have a right to feel aggrieved by his con- 
tempt? Who, if not myself? But it happened, on the 
contrary, that I had a perfect craze for being despised. I 
doted on it, and considered contempt a sort of luxury that 
I was in continual fear of losing. Why not ? Wherefore 
should any rational person shrink from contempt, if it hap- 
pen to form the tenure by which he holds his repose in 
life ? The cases which are cited from comedy of such a 
yearning after contempt, stand upon a footing altogether 
different: there the contempt is wooed as a serviceable ally 
and tool of religious hypocrisy. But to me, at that era 
of life, it formed the main guaranty of an unmolested 
repose ; and security there was not, on any lower terms, 
for the latentis semita vitcE. The slightest approach to 
any favorable construction of my intellectual pretensions 
alarmed me beyond measure ; because it pledged me in a 
manner with the hearer to support this first attempt by a 
second, by a third, by a fourth — O Heavens! there is no 
saying how far the horrid man might go in his unreason- 
able demands upon me. I groaned under the weight of 
his expectations; ard, if J laid but the first round of such a 



64 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Staircase, why, then, I saw in vision a vast Jacob's ladder 
towering upwards to the clouds, mile after mile, league 
after league ; and myself running up and down this ladder, 
like any fatigue party of Irish hodmen, to the top of any 
Babel which my wretched admirer might choose to build. 
But I nipped the abominable system of extortion in the 
very bud, by refusing to take the first step. The man 
could have no pretence, you know, for expecting me to 
climb the third or fourth round, when I had seemed quite 
unequal to the first. Professing the most absolute bank- 
ruptcy from the very beginning, giving the man no sort of 
hope that I would pay even one farthing in the pound, I 
never could be made miserable by unknown respon- 
sibilities. 

Still, with all this passion for being despised, which was 
so essential to my peace of mind, I found at times an alti- 
tude — a starry altitude — in the station of contempt for 
me assumed by my brother that nettled me. Sometimes, 
indeed, the mere necessities of dispute carried me, before 
I was aware of my own imprudence, so far up the stair- 
case of Babel, that my brother was shaken for a moment 
in the infinity of his contempt ; and before long, when my 
superiority in some bookish accomplishments displayed it- 
self, by results that could not be entirely dissembled, mere 
foolish human nature forced me into some trifle of exulta- 
tion at these retributory triumphs. But more often I was 
disposed to grieve over them. They tended to shake that 
solid foundation of utter despicableness upon which I relied 
so much for my freedom from anxiety ; and therefore, 
upon the whole, it was satisfactory to my mind that my 
brother's opinion of me, after any little transient oscillation, 
gravitated determinately back towards that settled con- 
tempt which had been the result of his original inquest. 
The pillars of Hercules, upon which rested the vast edifice 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 65 

of his scorn, were these two — 1st, my physics; he de- 
nounced me for effeminacy : 2d, he assumed, and even 
postulated as a datum^ which I myself could never have 
the face to refuse, my general idiocy. Physically, there- 
fore, and intellectually, he looked upon me as below no- 
tice ; but, moraUy^ he assured me that he would give me a 
written character of the very best description, whenever I 
chose to apply for it. " You're honest," he said ; " you're 
willing, though lazy ; you would pull, if you had the 
strength of a flea ; and, though a monstrous coward, you 
don't run away." My own demurs to these harsh judg- 
ments were not so many as they might have been. The 
idiocy I confessed ; because, though positive that I was not 
uniformly an idiot, I felt inclined to think that, in a major- 
ity of cases, I really was ; and there were more reasons 
for thinking so than the reader is yet aware of. But, as to 
the effeminacy, I denied it in toto ; and with good reason, 
as will be seen. Neither did my brother pretend to have 
"any experimental proofs of it. The ground he went upon 
was a mere a priori one, viz., that I had always been tied 
to the apron string of women or girls ; which amounted at 
most to this — that, by training and the natural tendency 
of circumstances, I ought to be effeminate ; that is, there 
was reason to expect beforehand that I should be so ; but, 
then, the more merit in me, if, in spite of such jeasonable 
presumptions, I really were ?iot. In fact, my b. other soon 
learned, by a daily experience, how entirely he might de- 
pend upon me for carrying out the most audacious cf his 
own warlike plans — such plans, it is true, that I abomi- 
nated ; but that made no difference in the fidelity with 
which I tried to fulfil them. 

This eldest brother of mine was in all respects a re- 
markable boy. Haughty he was, aspiring, immeasurably 
active; fertile in resources as E.binson Crusoe; but also 
5 



6*5 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

full of quarrel as it is possible to imagine ; and, in default 
of any other opponent, he would have fastened a quarrel 
upon his own shadow for presuming to run before him 
when going westwards in the morning, whereas, in all rea- 
son, a shadow, like a dutiful child, ought to keep deferen- 
tially in the rear of that majestic substance which is the 
autho; of its existence. Books he detested, one and all, 
excepting only such as he happened to write himse f. 
And -hese were not a few. On all subjects known to man, 
from the Thirty-nine Articles of our English church down 
to pyrotechnics, legerdemain, magic, both black and white, 
thaumaturgy, and necromancy, he favored the world 
(which world was the nursery where I lived amongst my 
sisters) with his select opinions. On this last subject es- 
pecially — of necromancy — he was very great: witness 
his profound work, though but a fragment, and, unfortu- 
nately, long since departed to the bosom of Cinderella, en- 
titled " How to raise a Ghost ; and when you've got him 
down, how to keep him down." To which work he aS' 
sured us that some most learned and enormous man, 
whose name was a foot and a half long, had promised him 
an appendix, which appendix treated of the Red Sea and 
Solomon's signet ring, with forms of mittimus for ghosts 
that might be refractory, and probably a riot act, for any 
emeute amongst ghosts inclined to raise barricades ; since 
he often thrilled our young hearts by supposing the case, 
(not at all unlikely, he affirmed,) that a federation, a sol- 
emn league and conspiracy, might take place amongst the 
infinite generations of ghosts against the single generation 
of men at any one time composing the garrison of earth 
The Roman phrase for expressing that a man had died 
viz., ^'•Ahiit ad plures^'''' ^He has gone over to the major 
ity,) my brother explained to us ; and we easily compre 
hended that any one generation of the living human race 



INTRODJCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 67 

even if combined, and acting in concert, must be in a 
frightful minority, by comparison with all the incalculable 
generations that had trod this earth before us. The Parlia- 
ment of living men, Lords and Commons united, what a 
miserable array against the Upper and Lower House com- 
posing the Parliament of ghosts ! Perhaps the Pre-Adam- 
ites would constitute one wing in such a ghostly army. 
My brother, dying in his sixteenth year, was far enough 
from seeing or foreseeing Waterloo ; else he might have 
illustrated this dreadful duel of the living human race with 
its ghostly predecessors, by the awful apparition which at 
three o'clock in the afternoon, on the 18lh of June, 1815, 
the mighty contest at Waterloo must have assumed to eyes 
that watched over the trembling interests of man. The 
English army, about that time in the great agony of its 
strife, was thrown into squares ; and under that arrange- 
ment, which condensed and contracted its apparent num- 
bers within a few black geometrical diagrams, how fright- 
fully narrow, how spectral, did its slender quadrangles 
appear at a distance, to any philosophic spectators that 
knew the amount of human interests confided to that army, 
and the hopes for Christendom that even then were trem- 
bling in the balance ! Such a disproportion, it seems, 
might exist, in the case of a ghostly war, between the har- 
vest of possible results and the slender band of reapers that 
were to gather it. And there was even a worse peril than 
any analogous one that has been proved to exist at Water- 
loo. A British surgeon, indeed, in a work of two octavo 
volumes, has endeavored to show that a conspiracy was 
traced at Waterloo, between two or three foreign regi- 
ments, for kindling a panic in the heat of the battle, by flight, 
and by a sustained blowing up of tumbrils, under the mis- 
erable purpose of shaking the British steadiness. But the 
evidences are not clear; whereas my brother insisted thar 



68 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SZLTCHES. , 

the presence of sham men, distributed extensifcly amongst 
the human race, and meditating treason against us all, had 
been demonstrated to the satisfaction of all true philoso- 
phers. Who were these shams and make-believe men ? 
They were, in fact, people that had been dead for centu 
ries, but that, for reasons best known to themselves, had 
returned to this upper earth, walked about amongst us, and 
were undistinguishable, except by the most learned of nec- 
romancers, from authentic men of flesh and blood. I men- 
tion this for the sake of illustrating the fact, of which the 
reader will find a singular instance in the foot note at- 
tached, that the same crazes are everlastingly revolving 
upon men.* 

This hypothesis, however, like a thousand others, when 
it happened that they engaged no durable sympathy from 

* Five years ago, cluring the carnival of universal anarchy equally 
amongst doers and thinkers, a closely-printed pamphlet was pub- 
lished with this title, " A New Revelation, or the Communion of the 
Incarnate Dead with the Unconscious Living. Important Fact, 
without trifling Fiction, by Him." I have not the pleasure of know- 
ing Him ; but certainly I must concede to Him, that he writes like a 
man of extreme sobriety upon his extravagant theme. He is angry 
with Swedenborg, as might be expected, for his chimeras ; some of 
which, however, of late years have signally altered their aspect: but 
as to Him, there is no chance that he should be occupied with chime- 
ras, because (p. 6) "he has met with some who have acknowledged 
the fact of their having come from the dead" — hahes confitentein 
reum. Few, however, are endowed with so much candor; and in 
particular, for the honor of literature, it grieves me to find, by p. 10, 
that the largest number of these shams, and perhaps the most uncan- 
did, are to be looked for amongst " publishers and printers," of vhom, 
it seems, "the great majority" are mere forgeries: a very few «;eak 
frankly about the matter, and say they don't care who kno.vs it, 
which, to my tliinking, is impudence, but by far the larger section 
doggedly deny it, and cull a policeman, if you persist in charging 
them with being shams. Some differences there ar.e between my 
brother and Him, but in the great outline of their views they coincide; 



INTRODUCT ON TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 69 

his nursery audience, he did not pursue. For some time 
he turned his thoughts to philosophy, and read lectures 
to us every night upon some branch or other of physics. 
This undertaking arose upon some one of us envying or 
admiring flics for their power of walking upon the ceiling. 
" Poh ! " he said, " they are impostors ; they pretend to 
do it, but they can't do h as it ought to be done. Ah ! 
you should see me standing upright on the ceiling, with my 
head downwards, for half an hour together, and meditating 
profoundly." My sister Mary remarked, that we should all 
be very glad to see him in that position. " If that's the 
case," he replied, "it's very well that all is ready, except 
as to a strap or two." Being an excellent skater, he had 
first imagined that, if held up until he had started, he 
might then, by taking a bold sweep ahead, keep himself 
in position through the continued impetus of skating. But 
this he found not to answer ; because, as he observed, 
" the friction was too retarding from the plaster of Paris, 
but the case would be very different if the ceiling were 
coated with ice." As it was not, he changed his plan. 
The true secret, he now discovered, was this: he would 
consider himself in the light of a humming top ; he would 
make an apparatus (and he rhade it) for having himself 
launched, like a top, upon the ceiling, and regularly spun. 
Then the vertiginous motion of the human top would over- 
power the force of gravitation. He should, of course, 
spin upon his own axis, and sleep upon his own axis — 
perhaps he might even dream upon it; and he laughed at 
" those scoundrels, the flies," that never improved in their 
pretended art, nor made any thing of it. The principle 
was now discovered ; "and, of course," he said, if a man 
can keep it up for five minutes, what's to hinder him from 
doing so for five months?" "Certainly, nothing that 1 
can think of," was the reply of my sister, whose scepticism, 



70 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

in fact, had not settled upon the five months, but altogether 
upon the five minutes. The apparatus for spinning him, 
however, perhaps from its complexity, would not work — a 
fact evidently owing to the stupidity of the gardener. On 
reconsidering the subject, he announced, to the disappoint- 
ment of some amongst us, that, although the physical dis- 
covery was now complete, he saw a moral difficulty. It 
was not a humming top that was required, but a peg top. 
Now, this, in order to keep up the vertigo at full stretch, 
without which, to a certainty, gravitation would prove too 
much for him, needed to be whipped incessantly. But 
that was precisely what a gentleman ought not to tole- 
rate : to be scourged unintermittingly on the legs by any 
grub of a gardener, unless it were father Adam himself, 
was a thing that he could not bring his mind to face. 
However, as some compensation, he proposed to improve 
the art of flying, which was, as every body must acknowl- 
edge, in a condition disgraceful to civilized society. As 
he had made many a fire balloon, and had succeeded in 
some attempts at bringing down cats by parachutes, it was 
not very difficult to fly downwards from moderate eleva- 
tions. But, as he was reproached by my sister for never 
flying back again, — which, however, was a far diflferent 
thing, and not even attempted by the philosopher in " Ras- 
selas," — (for 

" Eevocare gradum, et snperas evadere ad auras, 
Hie labor, hoc opus est,') 

he refused, under such poor encouragement, to try his 
winged parachutes any more, either " aloft or alow," till 
he had thoroughly studied Bishop Wilkins * on the art of 

* " Bishop Wilkinsr—Dv. W., Bishop of Chester, in the reign of 
Charles U., notoriously wrote a book on the possibility cf a voyage 



INTEODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 71 

translating right reverend gentlemen to the moon ; and, in 
the mean time, he resumed his general lectures on physics. 
From these, however, he was speedily driven, or one might 
say shelled out, by a concerted assault of my sister Mary's. 
He had been in the habit of lowering the pitch of his 
lectures with ostentatious condescension to the presumed 
level of our poor understandings. This superciliousness 
annoyed my sister; and accordingly, with the help of two 
young female visitors, and my next younger brother, — in 
subsequent times a little middy on board many a ship of H. 
M., and the most predestined rebel upon earth against all 
assumptions, small or great, of superiority, — she arranged 
a mutiny, that had the unexpected effect of suddenly extin- 
guishing the lectures forever. He had happened to say, 
what was no unusual thing with him, that he flattered him- 
self he had made the point under discussion tolerably clear; 
"clear," he added, bowing round the half circle of us, the 
audience, " to the meanest of capacities ;" and then he re- 
peated, sonorously, " clear to the most excruciatingly mean 
of capacities." Upon which, a voice, a female voice, — 
but whose voice, in the tumult that followed, I did not 
distinguish, — retorted, " No, you haven't; it's as dark as 
sin ;" and then, without a moment's interval, a second voice 
exclaimed, " Dark as night ;" then came my young brother's 

;o the moon, which, in a bishop, would be called a translation to the 
moon, and perhaps it was his name in combination with his book that 
suggested the " Adventures of Peter Wilkins." It is unfair, how- 
ever, to mention him in connection with that single one of his works 
which announces an extravagant purpose. He was really a scientific 
man, and already in the time of Cromwell (about 1656) had pro- 
jected that Royal Society of London which Avas afterwards realized 
and presided over by Isaac Barrow and Isaac Newton. lie was also 
a learned man, but still with a veil of romance about him, as may be 
seen in his most elaborate work — " The Essay towards a Philosophic 
or Universal Language." 



72 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

insurvectionaiy yell, " Dark as midnight ; " then another fe- 
male voice chimed in melodiously, " Dark as pitch ; " and 
so the peal continued to come round like a catch, the whole 
being so well concerted, and the rolling fire so well sus- 
tained, that it was impossible to make head against it; 
whilst the abruptness of the interruption gave to it the pro- 
tecting character of an oral " round robin," it being impos- 
sible to challenge any one in particular as the ringleader. 
Burke's phrase of " the swinish multitude," applied to 
mobs, was then in every body's mouth ; and, accordingly, 
after my brother had recovered from his first astonishment 
at this audacious mutiny, he made us several sweeping bows 
that looked very much like tentative rehearsals of a sweep- 
ing /if5?7/arfe, and then addressed us in a very brief speech, 
of which we could distinguish the words pearls and swinish 
multitude^ but uttered in a very low key, perhaps out of 
some lurking consideration for the two young strangers. 
We all laughed in chorus at this parting salute ; my brother 
himself condescended at last to join us ; but there ended 
the course of lectures on natural philosophy. 

As it was impossible, however, that he should remain 
quiet, he announced to us, that for the rest of his life he 
meant to dedicate himself to the intense cultivation of the 
tragic drama. He got to work instantly ; and very soon 
he had composed the first act of his " Sultan Selim ;" but, 
in defiance of the metre, he soon changed the title to 
" Sultan Amu rath," considering that a much fiercer name, 
more bewhiskered and beturbaned. It was no part of his 
intention that we should sit lolling on chairs like ladies 
and gentleman that had paid opera prices for private boxes. 
He expected every one of us, he said, to pull an oar. We 
were to act the tragedy. But, in fact, we had many oars 
to pull. There were so many characters, that each of us 
took four at the least, and the future middy had six. He, 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 73 

this wicked little middy,* caused the greatest affliction to 
Sultan Amurath, forcing him to order the amputation of 
his head six several nmes (that is, once in every one of his 
six parts) during the first act. In reality, the sultan, though 
otherwise a decent man, was too bloody. What by the 
bowstring, and wha; by the cimeter, he had so thinned 
the population with which he commenced business, that 
scarcely any of the characters remained alive at the end 
of act the first. Sultan Amurath found himself in an 
awkward situation. Large arrears of work remained, and 
hardly any body to do it but the sultan himself. In com- 
posing act the second, the author had to proceed like 
Deucalion and Pyrrha, and to create an entirely new 
generation. Apparently this young generation, that ought 
to have been so good, took no warning by what had hap- 
pened to their ancestors in act the first : one must conclude 
that they were quite as wicked, since the poor sultan had 
found himself reduced Jo order them all for execution in 
the course of this act the second. To the brazen age had 
succeeded an iron age ; and the prospects were becoming 
sadder and sadder as the tragedy advanced. But here the 
author began to hesitate. He felt it hard to resist the in 
stinct of carnage. And was it right to do so ? Which of 
the felons whom he had cut of prematurely could pretend 
that a court of appeal would have reversed his sentence ? 
But the consequences were distressing. A new set of 
characters in every act brought with it the necessity of a 

* " Micldi/." — I call him so simply to avoid confusion, and by way 
of anticipation ; else he was too young at this time to serve in the 
navy. Afterwards he did so for many years, and saw every variety 
of service in every class of ships belonging to our navy. At one 
time, when yet a boy, he was captured hy pirates, and compelled to 
sail with them and the end of his adventurous career was, that for 
many a year h«r has been lying at the bottom of the Atlantic. 



74 AUTOBIOGRAI dlC SKETCHES. 

new plot ; for people could not succeed to the arrears of 
old actions, or inherit ancient motives, like a landed estate. 
Five crops, in fact, must be taken off the ground in each 
separate tragedy, amounting, in short, to five tragedies in- 
volved in one. 

Such, according to the rapid sketch which at this mo- 
ment my memory furnishes, was the brother who now first 
laid open to me the gates of war. The occasion was this. 
He had resented, with a shower of stones, an affront of- 
fered to us by an individual boy, belonging to a cotton 
factory : for more than two years afterwards this became 
the teterrima causa of a skirmish or a battle as often as we 
passed the factory ; and, unfortunately, that was twice 
a day on every day except Sunday. Our situation in 
respect to the enemy was as follows : Greenhay, a coun- 
try house newly built by my father, at that time was a 
clear mile from the outskirts of Manchester ; but in after 
years Manchester, throwing out the tentacula of its vast 
expansions, absolutely enveloped Greenhay ; and, for any 
thing I know, the grounds and gardens which then insu- 
lated the house may have long disappeared. Being a 
modest mansion, which (including hot walls, ofiices, and 
gardener's house) had cost only six thousand pounds, I do 
not know how it should have risen to the distinction of 
giving name to a region of that great town ; however, it 
has done so ; * and at this time, therefore, after changes 
so great, it will be difficult for the habitue of that region 
to understand how my brother and myself could have a 
solitary road to traverse between Greenhay and Princess 
Street, then the termination, on that side, of Manchester. 

* " Green/teys," with a slight variation in the spelling, is the name 
given to that district of which Greenhay formed the original nucleus. 
Probably it was the solitary situation of the house which (failing 
any other grounds of denomination) raised it to this privilege. 



INTROLJCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 75 

But SO it was. Oxford Street^ like its namesake in Lon- 
don, was then called the Oxford Road ; and during the 
currency of our acquaintance with it, arose the first three 
houses in its neighborhood ; of which the third was built 
for the Rev. S. H., one of our guardians, for whom his 
friends had also built the Church of St. Peter's — not a 
bowshot from the house. At present, however, he resided 
m Salford, nearly two miles from Greenhay ; and to him 
we went over daily, for the benefit of his classical instruc- 
tions. One sole cotton factory had then risen along the 
line of Oxford Street ; and this was close to a bridge, 
which also was a new creation ; for previously all passen- 
gers to Manchester went round by Garrat. This factory be- 
came to us the qfficina gentium, from which swarmed forth 
those Goths and Vandals that continually threatened our 
steps ; and this bridge became the eternal arena of combat, 
we taking good care to be on the right side of the bridge 
for retreat, i, e., on the town side, or the country side, 
accordingly as we were going out in the morning, or re- 
turning in the afternoon. Stones were the implements of 
warfare ; and by continual practice both parties became 
expert in throwing them. 

The origin of the feud it is scarcely requisite to re- 
hearse, since the particular accident which began it was 
not the true efficient cause of our long warfare, but simply 
the casual occasion. The cause lay in our aristocratic 
dress. As children of an opulent family, where all pro- 
visions were liberal, and all appointments elegant, we were 
uniformly well dressed ; and, in particular, we wore trous- 
sers, (at that time unheard of, except among sailors,) and 
we also wore Hessia*!! boots — a crime that could not be 
forgiven in the Lancashire of that day, because it expressed 
the double offence of being aristocratic and being outland- 
ish. We were aristocrats, and it was vain to deny it ; 



73 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

could we deny our boots ? whilst our antagonists, if not 
absolutely smis culottes^ were slovenly and forlorn in their 
dress, often unwashed, with hair totally neglected, and 
always covered with flakes of cotton. Jacobins they were 
not, as regarded any sympathy wtth the Jacobinism that 
then desolated France ; for, on the contrary, they detested 
every tiing French, and answered with brotherly signals to 
the or}" of *' Church and king," or " King and constitu- 
tion." But, for all that, as they were perfectly independent, 
getting very high wages, and these wages in a mode of 
industry that was then taking vast strides ahead, they con- 
trived to reconcile this patriotic anti-Jacobinism with a 
personal Jacobinism of that sort which is native to the heart 
of man, who is by natural impulse (and not without a root 
of nobility, though also of base envy) impatient of inc' 
quality, and submits to it only through a sense of its neces- 
sit}'', or under a long experience of its benefits. 

It was on an early day of our new ty?^oci?iiujn, or perhaps 
on the very first, that, as we passed the bridge, a boy hap- 
pening to issue from the factory * sang out to us derisively, 
" Hollo, bucks ! " In this the reader may fail to perceive 
any atrocious insult commensurate to the long war which 
followed. But the reader is wrong. The word " dandies,'''' t 
which was what the villain meant, had not then been born, 
so that he could not have called us by that name, unless 
through the spirit of prophecy. Buck was the nearest word 
at hand in his Manchester vocabulary : he gave all he 
could, and let us dream the rest. But in the next moment 
he discovered our boots, and he consummated his crime by 

* " Factory.''^ — Such was the designation •technically at that time. 
At present, I believe that a building of that class would be called a 
"mill." 

t This word, however, exists in Jach-a iandy — a very old English 
"word. But what does that mean 1 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 77 

saluting us as " Boots ! boots ! " My brother made a dead 
stop, surveyed him with intense disdain, and bade him draw 
near, that he might " give his flesh to the fowls of the air." 
The boy declined to accept this liberal invitation, and con- 
veyed his answer by a most contemptuous and plebeian 
gesture,* upon which my brother drove him in with a 
shower of stones. 

During this inaugural flourish of hostilities, I, for my 
part, remained inactive, and therefore apparently neutral. 
But this was the last time that I did so : for the moment, 
indeed, I was taken by surprise. To be called a hack by 
one that had it in his choice to have called me a coward, 
a thief, or a murderer, struck me as a most pardonable 
offence ; and as to hoots^ that rested upon a flagrant fact 
that could not be denied ; so that at first I was green enough 
to regard the boy as very considerate and indulgent. But 
my brother soon rectified my views ; or, if any doubts 
remained, he impressed me, at least, with a sense of my 
paramount duty to himself, which was threefold. First, 
it seems that I owed military allegiance to hirn^ as my com- 
mander-in-chief, whenever we " took the field ; " secondly, 
by the law of nations, I, being a cadet of my house, owed 
suit and service to him who was its head ; and he assured 
me, that twice in a year, on my birthday and on liis^ he had 
a right, strictly speaking, to make me lie down, and to set 
his foot upon my neck ; lastly, by a law not so rigorous, 
but valid amongst gentlemen, — viz., ^'-hy i\\e comity of 
nations," — it seems I owed eternal deference to one so 
much older than myself, so much wiser, stronger, braver, 

* Precisely, however, the same gesture, plebeian as it was, by which 
the English commandant at Heligoland replied to the Danes when 
civilly inviting him to surrender. Southey it was, on the authority of 
Lieutenant Southey, his brother, who communicated to me this an- 
ecdote. 



78 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

more beautiful, and more swift of foot. Something like 
all this in tendency I had already believed, though I had 
not so minutely investigated the modes and grounds of my 
duty. By temperament, and through natural dedication to 
despondency, I felt resting upon me always too deep arid 
gloomy a sense of obscure duties attached to life, that I 
never should be able to fulfil ; a burden which I could not 
carry, and which yet I did not know how to throw off. 
Glad, therefore, I was to find the whole tremendous weight 
of obligations — the law and the prophets — all crowded 
into this one pocket command, " Thou shalt obey thy 
brother as God's vicar upon earth." For now, if, by any 
future stone levelled at him who had called me a " buck," 
I should chance to draw blood, perhaps I might not have 
committed so serious a trespass on any rights which he 
could plead ; but if I had^ (for on this subject my convictions 
were still cloudy,) at any rate, the duty I might have vio- 
lated in regard to this general brother, in right of Adam, 
was cancelled when it came into collision with my para- 
mount duty to this liege brother of my own individual 
house. 

From this day, therefore, I obeyed all my brother's mil- 
itary commands with the utmost docility ; and happy it 
made me that every sort of doubt, or question, or opening 
for demur was swallowed up in the unity of this one papal 
principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that all rights and 
duties of casuistry were transferred from me to himself. 
His was the judgment — his was the responsibility ; and to 
me belonged only the sublime obligation of unconditional 
faith in him. That faith I realized. It is true that he 
taxed me at times, in his reports of particular fights, with 
" horrible cowardice," and even with " a cowardice that 
seemed inexplicable, except on the supposition of treach- 
ery." But this was only a f agon de parler with him : the 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 79 

idea of secret perfidy, that was constantly moving under 
ground, gave an interest to the progress of the war, which 
else tended to the monotonous. It was a dramatic artifice 
for sustaining the interest, where the incidents might hap- 
pen to be too slightly diversified. But that he did not 
believe his own charges was clear, because he never repeat- 
ed them in his " General History of the Campaigns," 
which was a resume^ or recapituUting digest, of his daily 
reports. 

We fought every day, and, generally speaking, Uoice 
every day ; and the result was pretty uniform, viz., that 
my brother and I terminated the battle by insisting upon 
our undoubted right to run away. Magna Charta, I should 
fancy, secures that great right to every man ; else, surely, 
it is sadly defective. But out of tliis catastrophe to most 
of our skirmishes, and to all our pitched battles except one, 
grew a standing schism between my brother and myself. 
My unlimited obedience had respect to action, but not to 
opinion. Loyalty to my brother did not rest upon hy- 
pocrisy : because I was faithful, it did not follow that I 
must be false in relation to his capricious opinions. And 
these opinions sometimes took the shape of acts. Twice, 
at the least, in every week, but sometimes every night, my 
brother insisted on singing " Te Deum " for supposed vic- 
tories which he had won ; and he insisted also on my 
bearing a part in these " Te Deum 5." Now, as I knew of 
no such victories, but resolutely asserted the truth, — viz., 
that we ran away, — a slight jar was thus given to the else 
triumphal effect of these musical ovations. Once having 
uttered my protest, however, willingly I gave my aid to the 
chanting ; for I loved unspeakably the grand and varied 
system of chanting in the Romish and English churches. 
And, looking back at this day to the inefflible benefits 
which I derived from the church of my childhood, I account 



80 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

among the very greatest those which reached me through 
tlie various chants connected with the " O, Jubilate," the 
" Magnificat," the '' Te DeuijQ," the " Bcnedicite," &c. 
Through these chants it was that the sorrow which laid 
waste my infancy, and the devotion which nature had 
made a necessity of my being, were profoundly interfused : 
the sorrow gave reality and depth to the devotion ; the de- 
votion gave grandeur and idealization to the sorrow. Nei- 
tiier was my love for chanting altogether without knowl- 
edge. A son of my reverend guardian, much older than 
myself, who possessed a singular faculty of producing a 
sort of organ accompaniment whh one half of his mouth, 
whilst he sang with the other half, had given me some in- 
structions in the art of chanting ; and, as to my brother, 
he, the hundred-handed Briareus, could do all things; of 
course, therefore, he could chant. 

Once having begun, it followed naturally that the war 
should deepen in bitterness. Wounds that wrote memo- 
rials in the flesh, insults that rankled in the heart, — these 
were not features of the case likely to be forgotten by our 
enemies, and far less by my fiery brother. I, for my part, 
entered not into any of the passions that war may be sup- 
posed to kindle, except only the chronic passion of anxiety. 
Fear it was not ; for experience had taught me that, under 
the random firing of our undisciplined enemies, the chances 
were not many of being wounded. But the uncertainties 
of the war ; the doubts in every separate action whether I 
could keep up the requisite connection with my brother, 
and, in case I could not, the utter darkness that surrounded 
my fate ; whether, as a trophy won from Israel, I should 
be dedicated to the service of some Manchester Dagon, or 
pass through fire to Moloch, — all these contingencies, for 
me that had no friend to consult, ran too violently into the 
master current of my constitutional despondency ever to 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 81 

give way under any casual elation of success. Success, 
however, we really had at times; in slight skirmishes pret- 
ty often ; and once, at least, as the reader will find to his 
mortification, if he is wicked enough to take the side of the 
Philistines, a most smashing victory in a pitched battle. 
But even then, and whilst the hurrahs were yet ascending 
from our jubilating lips, the freezing remembrance came 
back to my heart of that deadly depression which, duly at 
the coming round of the morning and evening watches, 
travelled with me like my shadow on our approach to the 
memorable bridge. A bridge of sighs * too surely it was 

* " Bridge of sir/hs." — Two men of memorable genius, Hood last, 
and Lord Byron by many years previously, have so appropriated this 
phrase, and reissued it as English currency, that many readers sup- 
pose it to be theirs. But the genealogies of fine expressions should 
be more carefully preserved. The expression belongs originally to 
Venice. This jus postlimimi becomes of real importance in many 
cases, but especially in the case of Shakspeare. Could one have be- 
lieved it possible beforehand ? And yet it is a fact that he is made to 
seem a robber of the lowest order, by mere dint of suffering robbery. 
Purely through their own jewelly splendor have many hundreds of 
his phrases forced themselves into usage so general, under the vulgar 
infirmity of seeking to strengthen weak prose by shreds of poetic quo- 
tation, that at length the majority of careless readers come to look 
upon these phrases as belonging to the language, and traceable to no 
distinct proprietor any more than proverbs : and thus, on afterwards 
observing them in Shakspeare, they regard him in the light of one 
accepting alms (like so many meaner persons] from the common treas- 
ury of the universal mind, on which treasury, meantime, he had him- 
self conferred these phrases as original donations of his own. Many 
expressions in the "Paradise Lost." in "II Penscroso," and in "L' Al- 
legro," are in the same predicament. And thus the almost incredible 
case is realized which I have described, viz., that simply by having 
suffered a robbery through two centuries, (for the first attempt at 
plundering Milton was made upon his juvenile poems,) have Shaks- 
peare and Milton come to be taxed as robbers. N. B. — In speaking 
of Hood as having appropriated the phrase Bridge of Sighs, I would 
not be understood to represent him as by possibility aiming at any 

6 



82 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

for me ; and even for my brother it formed an object of 
fierce yet anxious jealousy, that he could not always dis- 
guise, as we first came in sight of it ; for, if it happened to 
be occupied in strength, there was an end of all hope that 
we could attempt the passage ; and that was a fortunate 
'solution of the difficulty, as it imposed no evil beyond a 
circuit ; which, at least, was safe, if the world should 
choose to call it inglorious. Even this shade of ignominy, 
however, my brother contrived to color favorably, by call- 
ing us — that is, me and himself — "a corps of observa- 
tion ; " and he condescendingly explained to me, that, al- 
though making " a lateral movement," he had his eye 
upon the enemy, and " might yet come round upon his left 
flank in a way that wouldn't, perhaps, prove very agree- 
able." This, from the nature of the ground, never hap- 
pened. We crossed the river at Garrat, out of sight from 
the enemy's position ; and, on our return in the evening, 
when we reached that point of our route from which the 
retreat was secure to Greenhay, we took such revenge for 
the morning insult as might belong to extra liberality in 
our stone donations. On this line of policy there was, 
therefore, no cause for anxiety ; but the common case was, 
that the numbers might not be such as to justify this cau- 
tion, and yet quite enough for mischief. To my brother, 
however, stung and carried headlong into hostility by the 
martial instincts of his nature, the uneasiness of doubt or 
insecurity was swallowed up by his joy in the anticipation 
of victory, or even of contest ; whilst to myself, whose ex- 
ultation was purely official and ceremonial, as due by loy- 
alty from a cadet to the head of his house, no such com- 
pensation existed. The enemy was no enemy in my eyes ; 

concealment. He was as far above such a meanness by his nobility 
of heart, as he was raised above all need for it by the overflowing 
opulence of his genius. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD 01 STRIFE. 83 

his affronts were but retaliations ; and his insults were so 
inapplicable to my unworthy self, being of a calibre exclu- 
sively meant for the use of my brother, that from me they 
recoiled, one and all, as cannon shot from cotton bags. 

The ordinary course of our day's warfare was this : be- 
tween nine and ten in the morning occurred our first tran- 
sit, and, consequently, our earliest opportunity for doing 
business. But at this time the great sublunary interest of 
breakfast, which swallowed up all nobler considerations of 
glory and ambition, occupied the work people of the facto- 
ry, (or what in the pedantic diction of this day are termed 
the " operatives,") so that very seldom any serious busi- 
ness was transacted. Without any formal armistice, the 
paramount convenience of such an arrangement silently 
secured its own recognition. Notice there needed none of 
truce, when the one side yearned for breakfast, and the 
other for a respite : the groups, therefore, on or about the 
bridge, if any at all, were loose in their array, and careless. 
We passed through them rapidly, and, on my part, unea- 
sily ; exchanging a few snarls, perhaps, but seldom or ever 
snapping at each other. The tameness was almost shock- 
ing of those who, in the afternoon, would inevitably resume 
their natural characters of tiger cats and wolves. Some- 
times, however, my brother felt it to be a duty that we 
should fight in the morning ; particularly when any expres- 
sion of public joy for a victory, — bells ringing in the dis- 
tance, — or when a royal birthday, or some traditional com- 
memoration of ancient feuds, (such as the 5th of Novem- 
ber,) irritated his martial propensities. Some of these 
being religious festivals, seemed to require of us an extra 
homage, for which we knew not how to find any natural 
or significant expression, except through sharp discharges 
of stones, that being a language older than Hebrew or San- 
scrit, and universally intelligible. But, excepting these 



84 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

high days of religious solemnity, when a man is called 
upon to show that he is not a pagan or a miscreant in the 
eldest of senses, by thumping, or trying to thump, some- 
body who is accused or accusable of being heterodox, the 
great ceremony of breakfast was allowed to sanctify the 
hour. Some natural growls we uttered, but hushed them 
soon, regardless 

" Of the sweeping whirlpool's sway, 
That, hushed in grim repose, looked for his evening prey." 

That came but too surely. Yes, evening never forgot to 
come ; this odious necessity of fighting never missed its 
road back, or fell asleep, or loitered by the way, more than 
a bill of exchange or a tertian fever. Five times a week 
(Saturday sometimes, and Sunday always, were days of 
rest) the same scene rehearsed itself in pretty nearly the 
same succession of circumstances. Between four and five 
o'clock we had crossed the bridge to the safe, or Green- 
hay side ; then we paused, and waited for the enemy. 
Sooner or later a bell rang, and from the smoky hive is- 
sued the hornets that night and day, stung incurably my 
peace of mind. The order and procession of the incidents 
after this were odiously monotonous. My brother occu- 
pied the main high road, precisely at the point where a 
very gentle rise of the ground attained its summit ; for the 
bridge lay in a shght valley, and the main military posi- 
tion was fifty or eighty yards above the bridge : then — but 
havmg first examined my pockets, in order to be sure that 
my stock of ammunition, stones, fragments of slate, with 
a reasonable proportion of brickbats, was all correct and 
ready for action — he detached me about forty yards to the 
right, my orders being invariable, and liable to no doubts 
or " quibbling." Detestable in my ears was that word 
" quibbling,^'' by which, for a thousand years, if the war 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WOKLD OF STKIFE. 85 

had happened to last so long, he would have fastened upon 
me the imputation of meaning, or wishing, at least, to do 
what he called '* pettifogujizing" — that is, to plead some 
distinction, or verbal demur, in bar of my orders, under 
some colorable pretence that, according to their literal con- 
struction, they really did not admit of being fulfilled, or 
perhaps that they admitted it too much as being capable of 
fulfilment in two senses, either of them a practicable sense. 
True it was that my eye was preternaturally keen for flaws 
of language, not from pedantic exaction of superfluous ac- 
curacy, but, on the contrary, from too conscientious a wish 
to escape the mistakes which language not rigorous is apt 
to occasion. So far from seeking to " pettifogulize " — i. e., 
to find evasions for any purpose in a trickster's minute tor- 
tuosities of construction — exactly in the opposite direction, 
from mere excess of sincerity, most unwillingly I found, in 
almost every body's words, an unintentional opening left 
for double interpretations. Undesigned equivocation pre- 
vails every where ; * and it is not the cavilling hair splitter, 
but, on the contrary, the single-eyed servant of truth, that 
is most likely to insist upon the limitation of expressions 
too wide or too vague, and upon the decisive election be- 
tween meanings potentially double. Not in order to resist 
or evade my brother's directions, but for the very opposite 

=^ Geometry (it has been said) would not evade disputation, if a 
man eoukl find his interest in disputing it : such is the spirit of cavil. 
But I, u})on a very opposite ground, assert that there is not one page 
of prose that could be selected from the best writer in the English 
language (far less in the German) which, upon a suificient interest 
arising, would not fumish matter, simply through its defects in pre- 
cision, for a suit in Chancery. Chancery suits do not arise, it is true, 
because the doubtful expressions do not touch any interest of prop- 
erty ; but what does arise is this — that something more valuable 
than a pecuniary interest is continnally suffering, viz., the interests 
of truth. 



86 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

purpose — viz., that I might fulfil them to the letter ; thus 
and no otherwise it happened that I showed so much 
scrupulosity about the exact value and position of his words, 
as finally to draw upon myself the vexatious reproach of 
being habitually a " pettifogulizer." 

Meantime, our campaigning continued to rage. Over- 
tures of pacification were never mentioned on either side. 
And I, for my part, with the passions only of peace at my 
heart, did the works of war faithfully and with distinction. 
I presume so, at least, from the results. It is true, I was 
continually falling into treason, without exactly knowing 
how I got into it, or how I got out of it. My brother also, 
it is true, sometimes assured me that he could, according to 
the rigor of martial justice, have me hanged on the first 
tree we passed ; to which my prosaic answer had been, 
that of trees there were none in Oxford Street — [which, in 
imitation of Von TroiPs famous chapter on the snakes of 
Lapland, the reader may accept, if he pleases, as a com- 
plete course of lectures on the " dendrology " of Oxford 
Street.] But, notwithstanding such little stumblings in my 
career, I continued to ascend in the service ; and, I am 
sure, it will gratify my friendly readers to hear, that, before 
my eighth birthday, I was promoted to the rank of major 
general. Over this sunshine, however, soon swept a train 
of clouds. Three times I was taken prisoner, and with 
difllerent results. The first time I was carried to the rear, 
and not molested in any way. Finding myself thus igno- 
miniously neglected, I watched my opportunity ; and, by 
making a wide circuit, easily effected my escape. In the 
next case, a brief council was held over me ; but I was not 
allowed to hear the deliberations ; the result only being 
communicated to me — which result consisted in a message 
not very complimentary to my brother, and a small present 
of kicks to myself. This present was paid down without 



>»./>ITRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 87 

any discount, by means of a general subscription amongst 
the party surrounding me — that party, luckily, not being 
very numerous ; besides which, I must, in honesty, ac- 
knowledge myself, generally speaking, indebted to their 
forbearance. They were not disposed to be too hard upon 
me. But, at the same time, they clearly did not think it 
right that I should escape altogether from tasting the calam- 
ities of war. And this translated the estimate of my guilt 
from the public jurisdiction to that of the individual, some- 
times capricious and harsh, and carrying out the public 
award by means of legs that ranged through all gradations 
of Weight and agility. One kick differed exceedingly from 
another kick in dynamic value ; and, in some cases, this 
difference was so distressingly conspicuous as to imply 
special malice, unworthy, I conceive, of all generous 
soldiership. 

On returning to our own frontiers, I had an opportunity 
of displaying my exemplary greenness. That message to 
my brother, with all its virus of insolence, I repeated as 
faithfully for the spirit, and as literally for the expressions, 
as my memory allowed me to do ; and in that troublesome 
effort, simpleton that I was, fancied myself exhibiting a 
soldier's loyalty to his commanding officer. My brother 
thought otherwise : he was more angry with me than with 
the enemy. I ought, he said, to have refused all participa- 
tion in such sans cuUotes insolence ; to carry it was to ac- 
knowledge it as fit to be carried. One grows wiser every 
day ; and on this particular day I made a resolution that, if 
again made prisoner, I would bring no more " jaw " (so my 
brother called it) from the Philistines. If these people would 
send " jaw," I settled that, henceforwards, it must go through 
the post office. 

In my former captures, there had been nothing special 
or worthy of commemoration in the circumstances. 



88 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Neither was there in the third, excepting that, by accident, 
in the second stage of the case, I was delivered over to the 
custody of young women and girls ; whereas the ordinary 
course would have thrown me upon the vigilant attentions 
(relieved from monotony by the experimental kicks) of 
boys. So far, the change was very much for the better. I 
had a feeling myself, on first being presented to my new 
young mistresses, of a distressing sort. Having always, up 
to the coinpletion of my sixth year, been a privileged pet, 
and almost, I might say, ranking amongst the sanctities of 
the household, with all its female sections, whether young 
or old, (an advantage which I owed originally to a long ill- 
ness, an ague, stretching over two entire years of my in- 
fancy,) naturally I had learned to appreciate the indulgent 
tenderness of women ; and my heart thrilled with love and 
gratitude, as often as they took me up into their arms and 
kissed me. Here it would have been as every where else ; 
but, unfortunately, my introduction to these young women 
was in the very worst of characters. I had been taken in 
arms — in arms against their own brothers, cousins, sweet- 
hearts, and on pretexts too frivolous to mention. If asked 
the question, it would be found that I should not myself 
deny the fact of being at war with their whole order. 
What was the meaning of that ? What was it to which war 
pledged a man ? It pledged him, in case of opportunity, 
to burn, ravage, and depopulate the houses and lands of the 
enemy ; which enemy was these fair girls. The warrior 
stood committed to universal destruction. Neither sex nor 
age, neither the smiles of unoffending infancy nor the gray 
hairs of the venerable patriarch, neither the sanctity of 
the matron nor the loveliness of the youthful bride, would 
confer any privilege with the warrior, consequently not 
with me. 

Many other hideous features in the military character 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 89 

will be found in books innumerable — levelled at those who 
make war, and therefore at myself. And it appears finally 
by these books, that, as one of my ordinary practices, I 
make a wilderness, and call it a pacification ; that I hold it 
a duty to put people to the sword ; which done, to plough 
up the foundations of their hearths and altars, and then to 
sow the ground with salt. 

All this was passing through my brain, when suddenly 
one young woman snatched me up in her arms, and kissed 
me : from Aer, I was passed round to others of the party, 
who all in turn caressed me, with no allusion to that war- 
like mission against them and theirs, which only had pro- 
cured me the honor of an introduction to themselves in the 
character of captive. The too palpable fact that I was not 
the person meant by nature to exterminate their families, 
or to make wildernesses, and call them pacifications, had 
withdrawn from their minds the counterfact — that what- 
ever had been my performances, my intentions had been 
hostile, and that in such a character only I could have be- 
come their prisoner. Not only did these young people 
kiss me, but I (seeing no military reason against it) kissed 
them. Really, if young women will insist on kissing major 
generals, they must expect that the generals will retaliate. 
One only of the crowd adverted to the character in which 
I came before them : to be a lawful prisoner, it struck her 
too logical mind that I must have been caught in some ag- 
gressive practices, " Think," she said, " of this little dog 
fighting, and fighting our Jack." " But," said another in a 
propitiatory tone, " perhaps he'll not do so any more." I 
was touched by the kindness of her suggestion, and the 
sweet, merciful sound of that same ^'•Not do so any more,'''' 
which really was prompted, I fear, much more by that 
charity in her which hopeth all things than by any signs 
of amendment in myself. Well was it for me that no time 



90 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

was allowed for an investigation into my morals by point- 
blank questions as to my future intentions. In which case 
It would have appeared too undeniably, that the same sad 
necessity which had planted me hitherto in a position of 
hostility to their estimable families would continue to per- 
secute me ; and that, on the very next day, duty to my 
brother, howsoever it might struggle with gratitude to them- 
selves, would range me in martial attitude, with a pocket- 
ful of stones, meant, alas ! for the exclusive use of their 
respectable kinsmen. Whilst I was preparing myself, 
however, for this painful exposition, my female friends 
observed issuing from the factory a crowd of boys not 
likely at all to improve my prospects. Instantly setting me 
down on my feet, they formed a sort of cordon sanitaire 
behind me, by stretching out their petticoats or aprons, as 
in dancing, so as to touch ; and then crying out, " Now, 
little dog, run for thy life," prepared themselves (I doubt 
not) for rescuing me, should my recapture be effected. 

But this was not effected, although attempted with an 
energy that alarmed me, and even perplexed me with a 
vague thought (far too ambitious for my years) that one or 
two of the pursuing party might be possessed by some 
demon of jealousy, as eye witnesses to my revelling 
amongst the lips of that fair girlish bevy, kissing and being 
kissed, loving and being loved ; in which case, from all that 
ever I had read about jealousy, (and I had read a great 
deal — viz., "Othello," and Collins's "Ode to the Pas- 
sions,") I was satisfied that, if again captured, I had very 
little chance for my life. That jealousy was a green-eyed 
monster, nobody could know better than I did. " O, my 
lord, beware of jealousy!" Yes; and my lord couldn't 
possibly have more reason for bewaring of it than myself; 
indeed, well it would have been had his lordship run away 
from all the ministers of jealousy — lago, Cassio, and 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 91 

embroidered handkerchiefs — at the same pace of six miles 
an hour which kept nie ahead of my infuriated pursuers. 
Ah, that maniac, white as a leper with flakes of cotton, can 
I ever forget him — him that ran so far in advance of his 
party ? What passion but jealousy could have sustained 
hini in so hot a chase ? There were some lovely girls in 
the fair company that had so condescendingly caressed 
me ; but, doubtless, upon that sv^^eet creature his love must 
have settled, who suggested, in her soft, relenting voice, a 
penitence in me that, alas! had not dawned, saying, '-''Yes; 
hut 'perhaps he will not do so cmy morey Thinking, as I 
ran, of her beauty, I felt that this jealous demoniac must 
fancy himself justified in committing seven times seven 
murders upon me, if he should have it in his power. But, 
thank Heaven, if jealousy can run six miles an hour, there 
are other passions — as, for instance, panic — that can run, 
upon occasion, six and a half; so, as I had the start of him, 
(you know, reader,) and not a very short start, — thanks 
be to the expanded petticoats of my dear female friends ! 
— naturally it happened that the green-eyed monster came 
in second best. Time, luckily, was precious with him; 
and, accordingly, when he had chased me into the by-road 
leading down to Greenhay, he turned back. For the mo- 
ment, therefore, I found myself suddenly released from 
danger. But this counted for nothing. The same scene 
would probably revolve upon me continually ; and, on the 
next rehearsal. Green-eyes might have better luck. It 
saddened me, besides, to find myself under the political 
necessity of numbering amongst the Philistines, and as 
daughters of Gath, so many kind-hearted girls, whom, by 
personal proof, I knew to be such. In the profoundest 
sense, I was unhappy ; and, not from any momentary acci- 
dent of distress, but from deep glimpses which now, and 
heretofore, had opened themselves, as occasions arose, into 



92 AUTOPIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

the inevitable conflicts of life. One of the saddest among 
such conflicts is the necessity, wheresoever it occurs, of 
adopting — though the heart should disown — the enmities 
of one's own family, or country, or religious sect. In 
forms how afflicting must that necessity have sometimes 
occurred during the Parliamentary war ! And, in after 
years, amongst our beautiful old English metrical ro- 
mances, I found the same impassioned complaint uttered 
by a knight. Sir Ywain, as early as A. D. 1240 — 

" But now, where'er I stray or go, 
My heart she has that is my foe ! " 

I knew — I anticipated to a certainty — that my brother 
would not hear of any merit belonging to the factory 
population whom eveiy day we had to meet in battle ; on 
the contrary, even submission on their part, and willing- 
ness to walk penitential ly through the FurccB Caudince, 
would hardly have satisfied his sense of their criminality. 
Often, indeed, as we came in view of the factory, he vv^ould 
shake his fist at it, and say, in a ferocious tone of voice, 
" Delenda est Carthago ! " And certainly, I thought to 
myself, it must be admitted by every body, that the factoiy 
people are inexcusable in raising a rebellion against my 
brother. But still rebels were men, and sometimes were 
women; and rebels, that stretch out their petticoats like 
fans for the sake of screening one from the hot pursuit of 
enemies with fiery eyes, (green or otherwise,) really are not 
the sort of people that one wishes to hate. 

Homewards, therefore, I drew in sadness, and little 
doubting that hereafter I might have verbal feuds with my 
brother on behalf of my fair friends, but not dreaming how 
much displeasure I had already incurred by my treason- 
able collusion with their caresses. That part of the affair 
he had seen with his own eyes, from his position on the 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 93 

field ; and then it was that he left me indignantly to my 
fate, which, by my first reception, it was easy to see would 
not prove very gloomy. When I came into our own study, 
I found him engaged in preparing a bulletin^ (which word 
was just then travelling into universal use,) reporting briefly 
the events of the day. The art of drawing, as I shall again 
have occasion to mention, was amongst his foremost accom- 
plishments ; and round the margin of the border ran a 
black border, ornamented with Cyprus and other funereal 
emblems. When finished, it was carried into the room of 
Mrs. Evans. This Mrs. Evans was an important person in 
our affairs. My mother, who never chose to have any 
direct communication with her servants, always had a 
housekeeper for the regulation of all domestic business ; 
and the housekeeper, for some years, was this Mrs. Evans. 
Into her private parlor, where she sat aloof from the under 
servants, my brother and I had the entree at all times, but 
upon very different terms of acceptance : he as a favorite 
of the first class ; /, by sufferance, as a sort of gloomy 
shadow that ran after his person, and could not well be 
shut out if he were let in. Him she admired in the very 
highest degree ; myself, on the contrary, she detested, 
which made me unhappy. But then, in some measure, 
she made amends for this, by despising me in extremity ; 
and for that I was truly thankful — I need not say why^ as 
the reader already knows. Why she detested me, so far 
as I know, arose in part out of my thoughtfulness indis- 
posed to garrulity, and in part out of my savage, Orson- 
like sincerity. 1 had a great deal to say, but then I could 
say it only to a very few people, amon^zst whom Mrs. 
Evans was certainly not one ; and, when I did say any 
thing, I fear that dire ignorance prevented my laying the 
proper restraints upon my too liberal candor ; and that 
could not prove acceptable to one who thought nothing of 



94 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

working for any purpose, or for no purpose, by petty tricks, 
or even falsehoods — all which I held in stern abhorrence 
that I was at no pains to conceal. The bulletin on this 
occasion, garnished with this pageantry of woe, cypress 
wreaths, and arms reversed, was read aloud to Mrs. Evans, 
indirectly, therefore, to me. It communicated, with Spar- 
tan brevity, the sad intelligence (but not sad to Mrs. E.) 
" that the major general had forever disgraced himself, by 
submitting to the caresses of the enemy." 1 leave 

a blank for the epithet affixed to " caresses," not because 
there icas any blank, but, on the contrary, because my 
brother's wrath had boiled over in such a hubble-bubble of 
epithets, some only half erased, some doubtfully erased, 
that it was impossible, out of the various readings, to pick 
out the true classical text. " Infamous," " disgusting," 
and " odious " struggled for precedency ; and infamous 
they might be; but on the other affixes I held my own 
private opinions. For some days, my brother's displeasure 
continued to roll in reverberating thunders ; but at length 
it growled itself to rest ; and at last be descended to mild 
expostulations with me, showing clearly, in a series of 
general orders, what frightful consequences must ensue, if 
major generals (as a general principle) should allow them- 
selves to be kissed by the enemy. 

About this time my brother began to issue, instead of 
occasional bulletins, through which hitherto he had breathed 
his opinions into the ear of the public, (viz., of Mrs. Evans,) 
a regular gazette, which, in imitation of the London Ga- 
zette, was published twice a week. I suppose that no 
creature ever led such a life as I did in that gazette. 
Run up to the giddiest heights of promotion on one day, for 
merits which I could not myself discern, in a week or two 
I was brought to a court martial for offences equally ob- 
scure. I was cashiered ; I was restored " on the interces- 



^INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 95 

sion of a distinguished lady ; " (Mrs. Evans, to wit ;) I was 
threatened with being drummed out of the army, to the 
music of the " Rogue's Marcli ;" and then, in tlie midst of 
all this misery and degradation, upon the discovery of some 
supposed energy that I had manifested, I was decorated 
with the Order of the Bath. My reading had been exten- 
sive enough to give me some vague aerial sense of the 
honor involved in such a decoration, whilst I was pro- 
foundh' ignorant of the channels through which it could 
reach an individual, and of the sole fountain from which it 
could flow. But, in this enormity of disproportion between 
the cause and the effect, between the agency and the result, 
I saw nothing more astonishing than I had seen in many 
other cases confessedly true. Thousands of vast effects, 
by all that I had heard, linked themselves to causes appar- 
ently trivial. The dreadful taint of scrofula, 'according 
to the belief of all Christendom, fled at the simple touch 
of a Stuart* sovereign: no miracle in the Bible, from 
Jordan or from Bethesda, could be more sudden or more 
astoundingly victorious. By my ow^n experience, again, I 
knew that a styan (as it is called) upon the eyelid could be 
easily reduced, though not instantaneously, by the slight 
application of any golden trinket. Warts upon the fingers 
of children I had myself known to vanish under the verbal 
charm of a gypsy woman, without any medicinal applica- 
tion whatever. And I well knew, that almost all nations 

=* " 0/ a Stuart sovereign,''^ and by no means of a Stuart only. 
Queen Anne, the last Stuart who sat on the British throne, was the 
last of our princes who touched for the king^s evil, (as scrofula was 
generally called until lately ;) but the Bourbon houses, on the 
thrones of France, Spain, and Naples, as well as the house of 
Savoy, claimed and exercised the same supernatural privilege down 
to a much later period than the year 1714 — the last of Queen Anne: 
according to their own and the popuhir faith, they could have 
cleansed Naaman the Syrian, and Gchazi too. 



96 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

believed in the dreadful mysteiy of the evil eye ; some requir- 
ing, as a condition of the evil agency, the co-presence of 
malice in the agent ; but others, as appeared from my 
father's Portuguese recollections, ascribing the same horrid 
power to the eye of certain select persons, even though 
innocent of all malignant purpose, and absolutely uncon- 
scious of their own fatal gift, until awakened to it by the 
results. Why, therefore, should there be any thing to 
shock, or even to surprise, in the power claimed by my 
brother, as an attribute inalienable from primogeniture in 
certain select families, of conferring knightly honors? 
The red ribbon of the Bath he certainly did confer upon 
me ; and once, in a paroxysm of imprudent liberality, he 
promised me at the end of certain months, supposing that 
I swerved from my duty by no atrocious delinquency, the 
Garter itself. This, I knew, was a far loftier distinction 
than the Bath. Even then it was so ; and since those days 
it has become much more so ; because the long roll of 
martial services in the great war with Napoleon compelled 
our government greatly to widen the basis of the Bath. 
This promise was never fulfilled ; but not for any want 
of clamorous persecution on my part addressed to my 
brother's wearied ear and somewhat callous sense of 
honor. Every fortnight, or so, I took care that he should re- 
ceive a " refresher," as lawyers call it, — a new and revised 
brief, — memorializing my pretensions. These it was my 
brother's policy to parry, by alleged instances of recent 
misconduct on my part. But all such offences, I insisted, 
were thoroughly washed away by subsequent services in 
moments of peril, such as he himself could not always 
deny. In reality, I believe his real motive for withholding 
the Garter was, that he had nothing better to bestow upon 
himself. 

" Now, look here," he would say, appealing to Mrs. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 97 

Evans ; " I suppose there's a matter of half a dozen kings 
on the continent, that would consent to lose three of their 
fingers, if by such a sacrifice they could purchase the blue 
ribbon ; and here is this little scamp, conceiting himself 
entitled to it before he has finished two campaigns." But 
I was not the person to be beaten off in this fashion. I 
took my stand upon the promise. A promise was a prom- 
ise, even if made to a scamp ; and then, besides but 

there I hesitated ; awful thoughts interposed to check me ; 
else I wished to suggest that, perhaps, some two or three 
among that half dozen kings might also be scamps. How- 
ever, I reduced the case to this plain dilemma : These six 
kings had received a promise, or they had not. If they had 
not, my case was better than theirs ; if they had, then, said 

I, " all seven of us " 1 was going to add, " are sailing 

in the same boat," or something to that effect, though not 
so picturesquely expressed ; but I was interrupted by his 
deadly frown at my audacity in thus linking myself on as a 
seventh to this attelage of kings, and that such an absolute 
grub should dream of ranking as one in a bright pleiad of 
pretenders to the Garter. I had not particularly thought of 
that ; but now, that such a demur was offered to my con- 
sideration, I thought of reminding him that, in a certain 
shadowy sense, I also might presume to class myself as a 
king, the meaning of which was this : Both my brother and 
myself, for the sake of varymg our intellectual amuse- 
ments, occupied ourselves at times in governing imaginary 
kingdoms. I do not mention this as any thing unusual ; it 
is a common resource of mental activity and of aspiring 
energies amongst boys. Hartley Coleridge, for example, 
had a kingdom which he governed for many years ; whether 
well or ill, is more than I can say. Kindly, I am sure, he 
would govern it ; but, unless a machine had been invented 
for enabling him to write without effort, (as was really done 
7 



9fi AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

for our fourth George during the pressure of illness,) I feal 
that the public service must have languished deplorably for 
want of the royal signature. In sailing past his own domin- 
ions, what dolorous outcries would have saluted him from 
the shore — " Hollo, royal sir ! here's the deuse to pay : a 
perfect lock there is, as tight as locked jaw, upon the course 
of our public business ; throats there are to be cut, from the 
product of ten jail deliveries, and nobody dares to cut them, 
for want of the proper warrant ; archbishoprics there are to be 
filled ; and, because they are not filled, the whole nation is 
running helter skelter into heresy — and all in consequence 
of your majesty's sacred laziness." Our governments 
were less remissly administered ; since each of us, by con- 
tinued reports of improvements and gracious concessions 
to the folly or the weakness of our subjects, stimulated the 
zeal of his rival. And here, at least, there seemed to be 
no reason why I should come into collision with my 
brother. At any rate, I took pains not to do so. But all 
was in vain. My destiny was, to live in one eternal ele- 
ment of feud. 

My own kingdom was an island called Gombroon. But 
in what parallel of north or south latitude it lay, I con- 
cealed for a time as rigorously as ancient Rome through 
every century concealed her real name.* The object in 
this provisional concealment was, to regulate the posi- 
tion of my own territory by that of my brother's ; for I 

* One reason, I believe, why it was held a point of wisdom in an- 
cient days that the metropolis of a warlike state should have a secret 
name hidden from the world, lay in the pagan practice of evocation^ 
applied to the tutelnry deities of such a state. These deities might 
be lured by certain rites and briberies into a transfer of their favors 
to the besieging army. But, in order to make such an evocation 
eflectual, it was necessary to know the original and secret name of 
the beleaguered city ; and this, therefore, was religiously concealed. 



INTRODUCTIOIS TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 99 

was determined to place a monstrous world of waters be- 
tween us as the only chance (and a very poor one it 
proved) for compelling my brother to keep the peace. At 
length, for some reason unknown to me, and much to my as- 
tonishment, he located his capital city in the high latitude of 
65 deg. N. That fact being once published and settled, in- 
stantly I smacked my little kingdom of Gombroon down into 
the tropics, 10 deg., I think, south of the line. Now, at 
least, I was on the right side of the hedge, or so I flattered 
myself; for it struck me that my brother never would de- 
grade himself by fitting out a costly nautical expedition 
against poor little Gombroon ; and how else could he get 
at me ? Surely the very fiend himself, if he happened to 
be in a high arctic latitude, would not indulge his malice 
so far as to follow its trail into the tropic of Capricorn. 
And what was to be got by such a freak? There was no 
Golden Fleece in Gombroon. If the fiend or my brother 
fancied tliat^ for once they were in the wrong box ; and 
there was no variety of vegetable produce, for I never de- 
nied that the poor little island was only 270 miles in cir- 
cuit. Think, then, of sailing through 75 deg. of latitude 
only to crack such a miserable little filbert as that. But 
my brother stunned me by explaining, that, although his 
capital lay in lat. 65 deg. N., hot the less his dominions 
swept southwards through a matter of 80 or 90 deg. ; and 
as to the tropic of Capricorn, much of it was his own pri- 
vate property. I was aghast at hearing that. It seemed 
that vast horns and promontories ran down from all parts 
of his dominions towards any country whatsoever, in either 
hemisphere, — empire or republic, monarchy, polyarchy, 
or anarchy, — that he might have reasons for assaulting. 

Here in one moment vanished all that I had relied on 
for protection : distance I had relied on, and suddenly I 
was found in close neighborhood to ray most formidable 



100 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

enemy. Poverty I had relied on, and that was not denied . 
he granted the poverty, but it was dependent on the bar- 
barism of the Gombroonians. It seems that in the central 
forests of Gombroonia there were diamond mines, which 
my people, from their low condition of civilization, did not 
value, nor had any means of working. Farewell, there- 
fore, on my side, to all hopes of enduring peace, for here 
was established, in legal phrase, a lien forever upon my 
island, and not upon its margin, but its very centre, in fa- 
vor of any invaders better able than the natives to make 
its treasures available. For, of old, it was an article in 
my brother's code of morals, that, supposing a contest 
between any two parties, of which one possessed an article, 
whilst the other was better able to use it, the rightful prop- 
erty vested in the latter. As if you met a man with a 
musket, then you might justly challenge him to a trial in 
the art of making gunpowder ; which if you could make, 
and he could not^ in that case the musket was de jure 
yours. For what shadow of a right had the fellow to a 
noble instrument which he could not " maintain " in a ser- 
viceable condition, and " feed " with its daily rations of 
powder and shot } Still, it may be fancied that, since 
all the relations between us as independent sovereigns 
(whether of war, or peace, or treaty) rested upon Our own 
representations and official reports, it was surely within 
my competence to deny or qualify as much as within his 
to assert. But, in reality, the law of the contest between 
us, as suggested by some instinct of propriety in my own 
mind, would not allow me to proceed in such a method. 
What he said was like a move at chess or draughts, which 
it was childish to dispute. The move being made, my 
business was — to face it, to parry it, to evade it, and, if I 
could, to overthrow it. 1 proceeded as a lawyer who 
moves as long as he can, not by blank denial of facts, (or 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 101 

comifkg to an issue,) but by demurring, (i. e., admitting the 
allegations of fact, but otherwise interpreting their con- 
struct on.) It was the understood necessity of the case 
that I must passively accept my brother's statements so far 
as regarded their verbal expression ; and, if I would extri- 
cate my poor islanders from their troubles, it must be by 
some distinction or evasion lying within this expression, or 
not blankly contradicting it. 

" How, and to what extent," my brother asked, " did I 
raise taxes upon my subjects ? " My first impulse was to 
say, that I did not tax them at all, for I had a perfect hor- 
ror of doing so ; but prudence would not allow of my say- 
ing that ; because it was too probable he would demand to 
know how, in that case, I maintained a standing army ; and 
if I once allowed it to be supposed that I had none, there 
was an end forever to the independence of my people. 
Poor things ! they would have been invaded and dragooned 
in a month. I took some days, therefore, to consider that 
point ; but at last replied, that my people, being maritime, 
supported themselves mainly by a herring fishery, from 
which I deducted a part of the produce, and afterwards 
sold it for manure to neighboring nations. This last hint 1 
borrowed from the conversation of a stranger who hap- 
pened to dine one day at Greenhay, and mentioned that in 
Devonshire, or at least on the western coast of that county, 
near Ilfracombe, upon any excessive take of herrings, be- 
yond what the markets could absorb, the surplus was ap- 
plied to the land as a valuable dressing. It might be in- 
ferred from this account, however, that the arts must be in 
a languishing state amongst a people that did not under- 
stand the process of salting fish ; and my brother observed 
derisively, mi ch to my grief, that a wretched ichthyopha- 
gous people must make shocking soldiers, weak as water, 
and liable to be knocked over like ninepins ; whereas, in 



102 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Ms army, not a man ever ate herrings, pilchards, mack- 
erels, or, in fact, condescended to any thing worse than sur- 
loins of beef. 

At every step I had to contend for the honor and inde- 
pendence of my islanders ; so that early I came to under- 
stand the weight of Shakspeare's sentiment — 

" Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ! " 

reader, do not laugh ! I lived forever under the terror 
of two separate wars in two separate worlds : one against 
the factory boys, in a real world of flesh and blood, of 
stones and brickbats, of flight and pursuit, that were any 
thing but figurative ; the other in a world purely aerial, 
where all the combats and the sufferings were absolute 
moonshine. And yet the simple truth is, that, for anxiety 
and distress of mind, the reality (which almost every morn- 
ing's light brought round) was as nothing in comparison of 
that dream kingdom which rose like a vapor from my own 
brain, and which apparently by Xhejlat of my will could be 
forever dissolved. Ah ! but no ; I had contracted obliga- 
tions to Gombroon ; I had submitted my conscience to a 
yoke ; and in secret truth my will had no such autocratic 
power. Long contemplation of a shadow, earnest study 
for the welfare of that shadow, sympathy with the wounded 
sensibilities of that shadow under accumulated wrongs, 
these bitter experiences, nursed by brooding thought, had 
gradually frozen that shadow into a rigor of reality far dens- 
er than the material realities of brass or granite. Who 
builds the most durable dwellings ? asks the laborer in 
" Hamlet ; " and the answer is. The gravedigger. He 
builds for corruption ; and yet his tenements are incorrupti- 
ble : " the houses which he makes last to doomsday." * 

* Hamlet, Act v., scene 1. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 103 

Who is it that seeks for conceahnent ? Let him hide him- 
self* in the unsearchable chambers of hght, — of light 
which at noonday, more effectually than any gloom, con- 

* " Hide himself in — lighV — The greatest scholar, by far, that 
this island ever produced, viz., Richard Bentlcy, published (as is well 
known) a 4to volume that in some respects is the very worst 4to now 
extant in the world — viz., a critical edition of the " Paradise Lost." 
I observe, in the "Edinburgh Review," (July, 1851, No. 191, p. 15,) 
that a learned critic supposes Bentley to have meant this edition as a 
"practical jest." Not at all. Neither could the critic have fancied 
such a possibility, if he had taken the trouble (which / did many a 
year back) to examine it. A jest book it certainly is, and the most 
prosperous of jest books, but undoubtedly never meant for such by 
the author. A man whose lips are livid with anger does not jest, and 
does not understand jesting. Still, the Edinburgh Reviewer is right 
about the proper functions of the book, though wrong about the in- 
tentions of the author. The fact is, the man was maniacally in error, 
and always in error, as regarded the ultimate or poetic truth of Mil- 
ton ; but, as regarded truth reputed and truth apparent, he often had 
the air of being fuiiously in the right ; an example of which I will 
cite. Milton, in the First Book of the "Paradise Lost," had said, — 
" That from the secret top 
Of Oreb or of Sinai didst inspire ; " 
upon which Bentley comments in effect thus : " How ! — the exposed 
summit of a mountain secret f Why, it's like Charing Cross — al- 
ways the least secret place in the whole county." So one might fan- 
cy ; since the summit of a mountain, like Plinlimmon or Cader Idris 
in Wales, like Skiddaw or Helvellyn in England, constitutes a cen- 
ti'al object of attention and gaze for the whole circumjacent district, 
measured by a radius sometimes of 15 to 20 miles. Upon this con- 
sideration, Bentley instructs us to substitute as the true reading — 
" That on the sacred top," &c. Meantime, an actual eicperiment will 
demonstrate that there is no place so absolutely secret and hidden as 
the exposed summit of a mountain, 3500 feet high, in respect to an 
eye stationed in the valley immediately below. A whole party of 
men, women, horses, and even tents, looked at under those circum- 
stances, is absolutely invisible unless by the aid of glasses : and it be- 
comes evident that a murder might be committed on the bare open 
summit of such a mountain with more assurance of absolute secrecy 
than any where else in the whole surrounding district. 



104 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

ceals the very brightest stars, — rather than in labyrinths of 
darkness the thickest. What criminal is that who wishes to 
abscond from public justice ? Let him hurry into the fran- 
tic publicities of London, and by no means into the quiet 
privacies of the country. So, and upon the analogy of these 
cases, we may understand that, to make a strife overwhelm- 
ing by a thousand fold to the feelings, it must not deal with 
gross material interests, but with such as rise into the world 
of dreams, and act upon the nerves through spiritual, and 
•not through fleshly torments. Mine, in the present case, 
rose suddenly, like a rocket, into their meridian altitude, by 
means of a hint furnished to my brother from a Scotch ad- 
vocate's reveries. 

This advocate, who by his writings became the remote 
cause of so much affliction to my childhood, and struck a 
blow at the dignity of Gombroon, that neither my brother 
nor all the forces of Tigrosylvania (my brother's kingdom) 
ever could have devised, was the celebrated James Burnett, 
better known to the English public by his judicial title of 
Lord Monboddo. The Burnetts of Monboddo, I have often 
heard, were a race distinguished for their intellectual ac- 
complishments through several successive generations ; and 
the judge in question was eminently so. It did him no in- 
jury that many people regarded him as crazy. In Eng- 
land, at the beginning of the last century, we had a say- 
ing,* in reference to the Harveys of Lord Bristol's family, 
equally distinguished for wit, beauty, and eccentricity, that 
at the creation there had been three kinds of people made, 
viz., men, women, and Harveys ; and by all accounts, 
something of the same kind might plausibly have been 
said in Scotland about the Burnetts. Lord Monboddo's 
nieces, of whom one perished by falling from a precipice, 

* Which " saijing " is sometimes ascribed, I know not how truly, 
to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 105 

(and, as I have heard, through mere absence of mmd, 
whilst musing upon a book which she carried in her hand,) 
still survive in the affection of many friends, through the 
interest attached to their intellectual gifts ; and Miss Bur- 
nett, the daughter of the judge, is remembered in all the 
memorials of Burns the poet, as the most beautiful, and 
otherwise the most interesting, of his female aristocratic 
friends in Edinburgh. Lord Monboddo himself trod an 
eccentric path in literature and philosophy ; and our tutor, 
who spent his whole life in reading, withdrawing himself in 
that way from the anxieties incident to a narrow income 
and a large family, found, no doubt, a vast fund of interest- 
ing suggestions in Lord M.'s '^ Dissertations on the Origin 
of Language ; " but to us he communicated only one sec- 
tion of the work. It was a long passage, containing some 
very useful illustrations of a Greek idiom ; useful I call 
them, because four years afterwards, when I had made 
great advances in my knowledge of Greek, they so ap- 
peared to me.* But then, being scarcely seven years old, 

* It strikes me, upon second thoughts, that the particular idiom, 
which Lord Monboddo illustrated as regarded the Greek language, 
merits a momentary notice ; and for this reason — that it plays a part 
not at all less conspicuous or less delicate in the Latin. Here is an 
instance of its use in Greek, taken from the well-known night scene in 
the " Iliad : " — 

yriOrjas 6s iroiyiSvog rjrop^ 

And the heart of the shepherd rejoices; where the verb yv^V^^ is in 
the indefinite or aorist tense, and is meant to indicate a condition of 
feeling not limited to any time whatever — past, present, or future. 
In Latin, the force and elegance of this usage are equally impressive, 
if not more so. At this moment, I remember two cases of this in 
Horace : — 

1. " Raro antecedentera scelestnm 

Deseruit pede poena claudo ; " 

2. " saepe Diespiter 
Neglectus inccsto addidit integrum." 



106 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

as soon as our tutor had finished his long extract from the 
Scottish judge's prelection, I could express my thankful- 
ness for what I had received only by composing my fea- 
tures to a deeper solemnity and sadness than usual — no 
very easy task, I have been told ; otherwise, I really had 
not the remotest conception of what his lordship meant. 
I knew very well the thing callec a tense; I knew even 
then by name the Aoristus Primus, as a respectable tense 
in the Greek language. It (or shall we say he ?) was 
known to the whole Christian world by this distinction of 
Primus ; clearly, therefore, there must be some low, vul- 
gar tense in the background, pretending also to the name 
of Aorist, but universally scouted as the Aoristus Secun- 
dus, or Birmingham counterfeit. So that, unable as I was, 
from ignorance, to go along with Lord M.'s appreciation 
of his pretensions, still, had it been possible to meet an 
Aoristus Primus in the flesh, I should have bowed to him 
submissively, as to one apparently endowed with the mys- 
terious rights of primogeniture. Not so my brother. 

That is — " oftentimes the supreme ruler, when treated with neglect, 
confounds or unites (not Juis united, as the tyro might fancy) the im- 
pure man with the upright in one common fate." 

Exceedingly common is this usage in Latin poetry, when the ob- 
ject is to generalize a remark — as not connected with one mode of 
time more than another. In reality, all three modes of time — past, 
present, future — are used (though not equally used) in all languages 
for this purpose of generalization. Thus, — 

1. The future; as, Sapiens dominabitur astris; 

2. The present; as. Fortes fortuna juvat; 

3. The past; as in the two cases cited from Horace. 

But this practice holds equally in English : as to the future and 
the present, nobody will doubt it ; and here is a case from the past : 
" The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God ; " not meaning, 
that in some past time he has said so, but that generally in all times 
he does say so, and will say so. 



INTRODUCTION TC THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 107 

Aorist, indeed ! Primus or Secundus, what mattered it ? 
Paving stones were something, brickbats were something ; 
but an old superannuated tense ! That any grown man 
should trouble himself about thai ! Indeed, there was some- 
thing extraordinary there. For it is not amongst the ordi- 
nary functions of lawyers to take charge of Greek ; far 
less, one might suppose, of lawyers in Scotland, where the 
general system of education has moved for two centuries 
upon a principle of slight regard to classical literature. 
Latin literature was very much neglected, and Greek nearly 
altogether. The more was the astonishment at finding a 
rare delicacy of critical instinct, as well as of critical sa- 
gacity, applied to the Greek idiomatic niceties by a Scottish 
lawyer, viz., that same eccentric judge, first made known 
to us by our tutor. 

To the majority of readers, meantime, at this day, Lord 
M. is memorable chiefly for his craze about the degeneracy 
of us poor moderns, when compared with the men of pagan 
antiquity ; which craze itself might possibly not have been 
generally known, except in connection with the little skir- 
mish between him and Dr. Johnson, noticed in Boswell's 
account of the doctor's Scottish tour. " Ah, doctor," said 
Lord M., upon some casual suggestion of that topic, " poor 
creatures are we of this eighteenth century ; our fathers 
were better men than we!" " O, no, my lord," was 
Johnson's reply ; " we are quite as strong as our forefathers, 
and a great deal wiser ! " Such a craze, however, is too 
widely diffused, and falls in with too obstinate a preconcep- 
tion * in the human race, which has in every age hypochon- 

* ''Too obstinate a preconception:' — Until the birth of geology, and 
of fossil paleontology, concurring with vast strides ahead in the 
science of comparative anatomy, it is a well-established fact, that 
oftentimes the most scientific museum admitted as genuine fragments 
of the human osteology what in fact belonged to the gigantic brutes 



108 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

driacally regarded itself as under some fatal necessity of 
dwindling, much to have challenged pubhc attention. As 
real paradoxes (spite of the idle meaning attached usually 
to the word paradox) have often no falsehood in them, so 
here, on the contrary, was a falsehood which had in it noth- 
ing paradoxical. It contradicted all the indications of history 



of our earth in her earliest stages of development. This mistake 
would go some way in accounting for the absurd disposition in all 
generations to view themselves as abridged editions of their fore- 
fathers. Added to which, as a separate cause of error, there can be 
little doubt, that intermingled with the human race tlvere has at most 
periods of the world been a separate and Titanic race, such as the 
Anakim amongst the peoples of Palestine, the Cyclopean race dif- 
fused over the Mediterranean in the elder ages of Greece, and certain 
tribes amongst the Alps, known to Evelyn in his youth (about Crom- 
well's time) by an unpleasant travelling experience. These gigantic 
races, however, were no arguments for a degeneration amongst the 
rest of mankind. They were evidently a variety of man, coexistent 
with the ordinary races, but liable to be absorbed and gradually lost 
by intermarriage amongst other tribes of the ordinary standard. Oc- 
casional exhumations of such Titan skeletons would strengthen the 
common prejudice. They would be taken, not for a local variety, but 
for an antediluvian or prehistoric type, from which the present races 
of man had arisen by gradual degeneration. 

These cases of actual but misinterpreted experience, at the same 
time that they naturally must tend to fortify the popular prejudice, 
would also, by accounting for it, and ingrafting it upon a reasonable 
origin, so far tend to take from it the reproach of a prejudice. Though 
eiToneous, it would yet seem to us, in looking back upon it, a rational 
and even an inevitable opinion, having such plausible grounds to 
stand upon ; plausible, I mean, until science and accurate examina- 
tion of the several cases had begun to read them into a different con- 
struction. Yet, on the other hand, in spite of any colorable excuses 
that may be pleaded for this prejudice, it is pretty plain that, after all, 
there is in human natui-e a deep-laid predisposition to an obstinate 
craze of this nature. Else why is it that, in eveiy age alike, men have 
asserted or even assumed the downward tendency of the human race 
in all that regards moral qualities. For the physical degeneration of 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 100 

ana experience, which uniformly had pointed in the very 
opposite direction ; and so far it ought to have been para- 
doxical, (that is, revolting to popular opinion,) but was not 
so ; for it fell in with prevailing opinions, with the oldest, 
blindest, and most inveterate of human superstitions. If 
extravagant, yet to the multitude it did not seem extrava- 
gant. So natural a craze, therefore, however baseless, 
would never have carried Lord Monboddo's name into that 
meteoric notoriety and atmosphere of astonishment which 
soon invested it in England. And, in that case, my child- 
hood would have escaped the deadliest blight of mortifica- 
tion and despondency that could have been incident to a 

man there really were some apparent (though erroneous) arguments ; 
but, for the moral degeneration, no argument at all, small or great. 
Yet a bigotry of belief in this idle notion has always prevailed 
amongst moralists, pagan alike and Christian. Horace, for example, 
informs us that 

" Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit 
Nos nequiores — mox daturos 
Progeniem vitiosiorem." 
The last generation was worse, it seems, than the penultimate, as the 
present is worst than the last. We, however, of the present, bad as 
we may be, shall be kept in countenance by the coming generation, 
which will prove much worse than ourselves. On the same prece- 
dent, all the sermons through the last three centuries, if traced back 
through decennial periods, so as to form thirty successive strata, will 
be found regularly claiming the precedency in wickedness for the 
immediate period of the writer. Upon which theories, as men ought 
physically to have dwindled long ago into pygmies, so, on the other 
hand, morally they must by this time have left Sodom and Go- 
mon-ah far behind. What a strange animal must man upon this 
scheme offer to our contemplation ; shrinking in size, by graduated 
process, through every century, until at last he would not rise an 
inch from the ground ; and, on the other hand, as regards villany, 
towering evermore and more up to the heavens. Wliat a dwarf! 
what a giant ! Why, the very crows would combine to destroy 
such a little monster. 



110 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

most morbid temperament concurring with a situation of 
visionary (yes ! if you please, of fantastic) but still of most 
real distress. 

How much it would have astonished Lord Monboddo to 
find himself made answerable, virtually made answerable, 
by the evidence of secret tears, for the miseiy of an un- 
known child in Lancashire. Yet night and day these 
silent memorials of suffering were accusing him as the 
founder of a wound that could not be healed. It happened 
that the several volumes of his work lay for weeks in the 
study of our tutor. Chance directed the eye of my brother, 
one day, upon that part of the work in which Lord M. un- 
folds his hypothesis that originally the human race had been 
a variety of the ape.' On which hypothesis, by the way, 
Dr. Adam Clarke's substitution of ape for serpent^ in trans- 
lating the word nachash^ (the brute tempter of Eve,) would 
have fallen to the ground, since this would simply have 
been the case of one human being tempting another. It 
followed inevitably, according to Lord M., however painful 
it might be to human dignity, that in this, their early stage 
of brutality, men must have had tails. My brother mused 
upon this revery, and, in a few days, published an extract 
from some scoundrel's travels in Gombroon, according to 
which the Gombroonians had not yet emerged from this 
early condition of apedom. They, it seems, were still 
homines caudati. Overwhelming to me and stunning was 
the ignominy of this horrible discovery. Lord M. had not 
overlooked the natural question — In what way did men get 
rid of their tails ? To speak the truth, they never ivould 
have got rid of them had they continued to run wild ; but 
growing civilization introduced arts, and the arts introduced 
sedentary habits. By these it was, by the mere necessity 
of continually sitting down, that men gradually wore off 
their tails. Well, and what should hinder the Gombroon- 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. Ill 

ians from sitting down? Their tailors and shoemakers 
would and could, I hope, sit down, as well as those of 
Tigrosylvania. Why not ? Ay, but my brother had in- 
sisted already that they had no tailors, that they had no 
shoemakers ; which, then^ I did not care much about, as it 
merely put back the clock of our history — throwing us 
into an earlier, and therefore, perhaps, into a more warlike 
stage of society. But, as the case stood now, this want of 
tailors, &c., showed clearly that the process of sitting down, 
so essential to the ennobling of the race, had not com- 
menced. My brother, with an air of consolation, sug- 
gested that I might even now, without an hour's delay, 
compel the whole nation to sit down for six hours a day, 
which would always " make a beginning." But the truth 
would remain as before, viz., that I was the king of a peo- 
ple that had tails ; and the slow, slow process by which, in 
a course of many centuries, their posterity might rub them 
off, — a hope of vintages never to be enjoyed by any gene- 
rations that are yet heaving in sight, — that was to me the 
worst form of despair. 

Still there was one resource : if I " didn't like it," mean- 
ing the state of things in Gombroon, I might " abdicate." 
Yes, I knew that. I might abdicate ; and, once having cut 
the connection between nnyself and the poor abject islanders, 
I might seem to have no further interest in the degrada- 
tion that affected them. After such a disruption between 
us, what was it to me if they had even three tails apiece } 
Ah, that was fine talking; but this connection with my 
poor subjects had grown up so slowly and so genially, in 
the midst of struggles so constant against the encroach- 
ments of my brother and his rascally people ; we had suf- 
fered so much together ; and the filaments connecting them 
with my heart were so aerially fine and fantastic, but for 
that reason so inseverable, that 1 abated nothing of my 



112 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

anxiety on their account ; making this difference only in 
my legislation and administrative cares, that I pursued 
them more in a spirit of despondency, and retreated more 
shyly from communicating them. It was in vain that my 
brother counselled me to dress my people in the Roman 
toga, as the best means of concealing their ignominious ap- 
pendages : if he meant this as comfort, it was none to me ; 
the disgrace lay in the fact, not in its publication ; and in 
my heart, though I continued to honor Lord Monboddo 
(whom I heard my guardian also daily delighting to honor) 
as a good Grecian, yet secretly I cursed the Aoristus Pri- 
mus, as the indirect occasion of a misery which was not 
and could not be comprehended. 

From this deep degradation of myself and my people, I 
was drawn off at intervals to contemplate a different mode 
of degradation affecting two persons, twin sisters, whom I 
saw intermittingly ; sometimes once a week, sometimes 
frequently on each separate day. You have heard, reader, 
of pariahs. The pathos of that great idea possibly never 
reached you. Did it ever strike you how far that idea had 
extended ? Do not fancy it peculiar to Hindostan. Be- 
fore Delhi was, before Agra, or Lahore, might the pariah 
say, I was. The most interesting, if only as the most mys- 
terious, race of ancient days, the Pelasgi, that overspread^ 
in early times of Greece, the total Mediterranean, — a race 
distinguished for beauty and for intellect, and sorrowful 
beyond all power of man to read the cause that could lie 
deep enough for so imperishable an impression, — they 
were pariahs. The Jews that, in the twenty-eighth chap- 
ter of Deuteronomy, were cursed in a certain contingency 
with a sublimer curse than ever rang through the passion- 
ate wrath of prophecy, and that afterwards, in Jerusalem, 
cursed themselves, voluntarily taking on their own heads, 
and on the heads of their children's children forever and 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 113 

ever, the guilt of innocent blood, — they are pariahs to this 
hour. Yet for them there has ever shone a sullen light of 
hope. The gypsies, for whom no conscious or acknowl- 
edged hope burns through the mighty darkness that sur- 
rounds them, — they are pariahs of pariahs. Lepers were 
a race of mediaeval pariahs, rejected of men, that now have 
gone to rest. But travel into the forests of the Pyrenees, 
and there you will find their modern representatives in the 
Cagots. Are these Pyrenean Cagots pagans ? Not at all. 
They are good Christians. Wherefore, then, that low door 
in the Pyrenean churches, through which the Cagots are 
forced to enter, and which, obliging them to stoop almost 
to the ground, is a perpetual memento of their degrada- 
tion ? Wherefore is it that men of pure Spanish blood will 
hold no intercourse with the Cagot ? Wherefore is it that 
even the shadow of a Cagot, if it falls across a fountain, is 
held to have polluted that fountain ? All this points to 
scfhfie dreadful taint of guilt, real or imputed, in ages far 
remote.* 

But in ages far nearer to ourselves, nay, in our own 
generation and our own land, are many pariahs, sitting 

^ The name and the history of the Pyrenean Cagots are equally 
obscure. Some have supposed that, during the period of the Gothic 
warfare with the Moors, the Cagots were a Christian tribe that be- 
trayed the Christian cause and interests at a critical moment. But 
all is conjecture. As to the name, Southey has somewhere offered a 
possible interpretation of it ; but it struck me as fer from felicitous, 
and not what might have been expected from Southey, whose vast 
historical research and commanding talent should naturally have un- 
locked this most mysterious of modern secrets, if any unlocking does 
yet lie within the resources of human skill and combining power, 
now that so many ages divide us from the original steps of the case. 
I may here mention, as a fact accidentally made known to myself, 
and apparently not known to Southey, that the Cagots, under a name 
very slightly altered, are found in France also, as well as Spain, and 
in provinces of France that have no connection at all with Spain. 
8 



114 AUTOBIOGRArHIC SKETCHES. 

amongst us all, nay, oftentimes sitting (yet not recognized 
for what they really are) at good men's tables. How 
general is that sensuous dulness, that deafness of the 
heart, which the Scriptures attribute to human beings ! 
" Having ears, they hear not ; and, seeing, they do not 
understand." In the very act of facing or touching a 
dreadful object, they will utterly deny its existence. Men 
say to me daily, when I ask them, in passing, " Any thing 
in this morning's paper ? " " O, no ; nothing at all." And, 
as I never had any other answer, I am bound to suppose 
that there never was any thing in a daily newspaper ; and, 
therefore, that the horrible burden of misery and of change, 
which a century accumulates as its facit or total result, has 
not been distributed at all amongst its thirty-six thousand 
five hundred and twenty-five days : every day, it seems, 
was separately a blank day, yielding absolutely nothing — 
what children call a deaf nut, offering no kernel ; and yet 
the total product has caused angels to weep and tremble. 
Meantime, when I come to look at the newspaper with my 
own eyes, I am astonished at the misreport of my inform- 
ants. Were there no other section in it than simply that 
allotted to the police reports, oftentimes I stand aghast at 
the revelations there made of human life and the human 
heart ; at its colossal guilt, and its colossal misery ; at 
the suffering which oftentimes throws its shadow over 
palaces, and the grandeur of mute endurance which 
sometimes glorifies a cottage. Here transpires the dread- 
ful truth of what is going on forever under the thick 
curtains of domestic life, close behind us, and before us, 
and all around us. Newspapers are evanescent, and are 
too rapidly recurrent, and people see nothing great in what 
is familiar, nor can ever be trained to read the silent and 
the shadowy in what, for the moment, is covered with the 
babbling garrulity of daylight. I suppose now, that, in 



INTROiUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 115 

the next generation after that which is here concerned, 
had any neighbor of our tutor been questioned on the sub- 
ject of a domestic tragedy, which travelled through its 
natural stages in a leisurely way, and under the eyes of 

good Dr. S , he would have replied, " Tragedy ! O, 

sir, nothing of the kind ! You have been misled ; the 
gentleman must lie under a mistake : perhaps it was in 
the next street." No, it was not in the next street ; and 
the gentleman does not lie under a mistake, or, in fact, lie 
at all. The simple truth is, blind old neighbor, that you, 
being rarely in the house, and, ichen there, only in one 
particular room, saw no more of what was hourly going 
on than if you had been residing with the Sultan of Bok- 
hara. But I, a child between seven and eight years old, 
had access every where. I was privileged, and had the 
entree even of the female apartments ; one consequence 
of which was, that I put this and that together. A num- 
ber of syllables, that each for itself separately might have 
meant nothing at all, did yet, when put together, through 
weeks and months, read for my eyes into sentences, as 
deadly and significant as Tekel^ upharsin. And another 
consequence was, that, being, on account of my age, 
nobody at all, or very near it, I sometimes witnessed 
things that perhaps it had not been meant for any body 
to witness, or perhaps some half-conscious negligence 
overlooked my presence. " Saw things ! What was it 
now ? Was it a man at midnight, with a dark lantern 
and a six-barrel revolver ? " No, that was not in the least 
like what I saw : it was a great deal more like what I will 
endeavor to describe. Imagine two young girls, of what 
exact age I really do not know, but apparently from twelve 
to fourteen, twins, remarkably plain in person and features, 
unhealthy, and obscurely reputed to be idiots. Whether 
they really were such was more than I knew, or could 



116 AITTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

devise any plan for learning. Without dreaming of any 
thing unkind or uncourteous, my original impulse had been 
to say, " If you please, are you idiots ? " But I felt that 
such a question had an air of coarseness about it, though, 
for my own part, I had long reconciled myself to being 
called an idiot by my brother. There was, however, a 
further difficulty : breathed as a gentle murmuring whisper, 
the question might possibly be reconciled to an indulgent 
ear as confidential and tender. Even to take a liberty 
with those you love is to show your trust in their affection ; 
but, alas ! these poor girls were deaf ; and to have shouted 
out, " Are you idiots, if you please ? " in a voice that would 
have rung down three flights of stairs, promised (as I felt, 
without exactly seeing why) a dreadful exaggeration to 
whatever incivility might, at any rate, attach to the ques- 
tion ; and some did attach, that was clear, even if warbled 
through an air of Cherubini's and accompanied on the 
flute. Perhaps they were not idiots, and only seemed to 
be such from the slowness of apprehension naturally con- 
nected with deafness. That I saw them but seldom, arose 
from their peculiar position in the family. Their father 
had no private fortune ; his income from the church was 
very slender ; and, though considerably increased by the 
allowance made for us, his two pupils, still, in a great 
town, and with so large a family, it left him little room for 
luxuries. Consequently, he never had more than two ser- 
vants, and at times only one. Upon this plea rose the 
scheme of the mother for employing these two young girls 
in menial offices of the household economy. One reason 
for that was, that she thus indulged her dislike for them, 
which she took no pains to conceal ; and thus, also, she 
withdrew them from the notice of strangers. In this way, 
it happened that I saw them myself but at uncertain inter- 
vals. Gradually, however, 1 came to le aware of their 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 117 

forlorn condition, to pity them, and to love them. The 
poor twins were undoubtedly plain to the degree which is 
called, by unfeeling people, ugliness. They were also 
deaf, as I have said, and they were scrofulous ; one of 
them was disfigured by the small pox ; they had glimmer- 
ing eyes, red, like the eyes of ferrets, and scarcely half 
open ; and they did not walk so much as stumble along. 
There, you have the worst of them. Now, hear something 
on the other side. What first won my pity was, their af- 
fection for each other, united to their constant sadness ; 
secondly, a notion which had crept into my head, probably 
derived from something said in my presence by elder peo- 
ple, that they were destined to an early death ; and, lastly, 
the incessant persecutions of their mother. This lady be- 
longed, by birth, to a more elevated rank than that of her 
husband, and she was remarkably well bred as regarded 
her manners. But she had probably a weak understand- 
ing ; she was shrewish in her temper ; was a severe econo- 
mist ; a merciless exactor of what she viewed as duty; 
and, in persecuting her two unhappy daughters, though she 
yielded blindly to her unconscious dislike of them, as crea- 
tures that disgraced her, she was not aware, perhaps, of 
ever having put forth more expressions of anger and sever- 
ity than were absolutely required to rouse the constitutional 
torpor of her daughters' nature ; and where disgust has 
once rooted itself, and been habitually expressed in tones 
of harshness, the mere sight of the hateful object mechani- 
cally calls forth the eternal tones of anger, without distinct 
consciousness or separate intention in the speaker. Loud 
speaking, besides, or even shouting, was required by the 
deafness of the two girls. From anger so constantly dis- 
charging its thunders, naturally they did not show open 
signs of recoiling ; but that they felt it deeply, may be pre- 
sumed from their sensibility to kindness. My own experi- 



118 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

ence showed that ; for, as often as I met them, we ex- 
changed kisses; and my wish had always been to beg 
them, if they really were idiots, not to mind it, since I 
should not like them the less on that account. This wish 
of mine never came to utterance ; but not the less they 
were aware, by my manner of salutation, that one person 
at least, amongst those who might be considered strangers, 
did not find any thing repulsive about them ; and the pleas- 
ure they felt was expressed broadly upon their kindling 
faces. 

Such was the outline of their position ; and, that being 
explained, what I saw was simply this : it composed a si- 
lent and symbolic scene, a momentary interlude in dumb 
show, which interpreted itself, and settled forever in my 
recollection, as if it had prophesied and interpreted the 
event which soon followed. They were resting from toil, 
and both sitting down. This had lasted for perhaps ten or 
fifteen minutes. Suddenly from below stairs the voice of 
angry summons rang up to their ears. Both rose, in an 
instant, as if the echoing scourge of some avenging Tisiph- 
one were uplifted above their heads ; both opened their 
arms ; flung them round each other's necks ; and then, un- 
clasping them, parted to their separate labors. This was 
my last rememberable interview with the two sisters ; in a 
week both were corpses. They had died, I believe, of 
scarlatina, and very nearly at the same moment. 

But surely it was no matter for grief, that the two scrof- 
ulous idiots were dead and buried. O, no ! Call them 
idiots at your pleasure, serfs or slaves, strulbrugs * or pa- 

* " Strulbrugs P — Hardly strulbrugs, will be the thought of the learn- 
ed reader, who knows that youvg women could not be strulbrugs •, 
since the true strulbrug was one who, from base fear of dying, had 
lingered on into an old age, omnivorous of every genial or vital im 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 119 

riahs ; their case was certainly not worsened by being 
booked for places in the grave. Idiocy, for any thing I 
know, may, in that vast kingdom, enjoy a natural prece- 
dency ; scrofula and leprosy may have some mystic privi- 
lege in a coffin ; and the pariahs of the upper earth may 
form the aristocracy of the dead. That the idiots, real or 
reputed, were at rest, — that their warfare was accomplish- 
ed, — might, if a man happened to know enough, be inter- 
preted as a glorious festival. The sisters were seen no more 
upon staircases or in bed rooms, and deadly silence had 
succeeded to the sound of continual uproars. Memorials 
of them were none surviving on earth. Not they it was 
that furnished mementoes of themselves. The mother it 
was, the father it was — that mother who by persecution 
had avenged the wounds offered to her pride ; that father, 

pulse. The strulbrug of Swift (and Swift, being his horrid creator, 
ought to understand his own honid creation) was a wreck, a shell, 
that had been burned hollow, and cancered by the fierce furnace of 
life. His clockwork was gone, or carious ; only some miserable frag- 
ment of a pendulum continued to oscillate paralytically from mere in- 
capacity of any thing so abrupt, and therefore so vigorous, as a decid- 
ed Halt ! Hov/ever, the use of this dreadful word may be reasona- 
bly extended to the young who happen to have become essentially old 
in misery. Intensity of a suffering existence may compensate the 
want of extension ; and a boundless depth of misery may be a trans- 
formed expression for a boundless duration of misery. The most 
aged person, to all appearance, that ever came under my eyes, was 
an infant — hardly eight months old. He was the illegitimate son 
of a poor idiot girl, who had herself been shamefully ill treated ; and 
the poor infant, falling under the care of an enraged grandmother, 
who felt herself at once burdened and disgraced, was certainly not 
better treated. He was dying, when I saw him, of a lingering mala- 
dy, with features expressive of frantic misery; and it seemed to me 
that he looked at the least three centuries old. One might have fan- 
cied him one of Swift's strulbrugs, that, through long attenuation and 
decay, had dwindled back into infancy, with one organ only left per- 
fect — the organ of fear and misery. 



120 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

who had tolerated this persecution ; she it was, he it was, 
that by the altered glances of her haunted eye, that by the 
altered character of his else stationary habits, had revived 
for me a spectacle, once real, of visionary twin sisters, mov- 
ing forever up and down the stairs — sisters, patient, hum- 
ble, silent, that snatched convulsively at a loving smile, or 
loving gesture, from a child, as at some message of remem- 
brance from God, whispering to them, " You are not for- 
gotten" — sisters born apparently for the single purpose 
of suffering, whose trials, it is true, were over, and could 
not be repeated, but (alas for her who had been their 
cause !) could not be recalled. Her face grew thin, her 
eye sunken and hollow, after the death of her daughters ; 
and, meeting her on the staircase, I sometimes fancied that 
she did not see me so much as something beyond me. Did 
any misfortune befall her after this double funeral ? Did 
the Nemesis that waits upon the sighs of children pursue 
her steps ? Not apparently : externally, things went well ; 
her sons were reasonably prosperous ; her handsome 
daughter — for she had a more youthful daughter, who 
xesWy was handsome — continued to improve in personal 
attractions ; and some years after, I have heard, she mar- 
ried happily. But from herself, so long as I continued to 
know her, the altered character of countenance did not de- 
part, nor the gloomy eye, that seemed to converse with se- 
cret and visionary objects. 

This result from the irrevocable past was not altogether 
confined to herself. It is one evil attached to chronic and 
domestic oppression, that it draws into its vortex, as un- 
willing, or even as loathing, cooperators, others who 
either see but partially the wrong they are abetting, or, 
in cases where they do see it, are unable to make head 
against it, through the inertia of their own nature, or 
through the coercion of circumstances. Too clearly, by 



iNTRODUCnON TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 121 

the restless irritation of his manner for some time after the 
children's death, their father testified, in a language not 
fully, perhaps, perceived by himself, or meant to be under- 
stood by others, that to his inner conscience he also was not 
clear of blame. Had he, then, in any degree sanctioned 
the injustice which sometimes he must have witnessed ? 
Far from it ; he had been roused from his habitual indo- 
lence into energetic expressions of anger ; he had put an 
end to the wrong, whea it came openly before him. I had 
myself heard him say on many occasions, with patriarchal 
fervor, " Woman, they are your children, and God made 
them. Show mercy to tliem^ as you expect it for yourself." 
But he must have been aware, that, for any three instances 
of tyrannical usage that fell under his notice, at least five 
hundred would escape it. That was the sting of the 
case — that was its poisonous aggravation. But with a 
nature that sought for peace before all things, in this very 
worst of its aggravations was found a morbid cure — the 
effectual temptation to wilful blindness and forgetfulness. 
The sting became the palliation of the wrong, and the 
poison became its anodyne. For together with the five 
hundred hidden wrongs, arose the necessity that they must. 
be hidden. Could he be pinned on, morning, noon, and 
night, to his wife's apron ? And if not, what else should 
he do by angry interferences at chance times than add 
special vindictive impulses to those of general irritation 
and dislike .'' Some truth there was in this, it cannot be 
denied : innumerable cases arise, in which a man the most 
just is obliged, in some imperfect sense, to connive at in- 
justice ; his chance experience must convince him that 
injustice is continually going on ; and yet, in any attempt 
to intercept it or to check it, he is met and bafHed by the 
insuperable obstacles of household necessities. Dr. S. 
Ihercfore surrendered himself, as under a coercion tliat 



122 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

was nor.;e of his creating, to a passive acquiescence and g 
blindness that soothed his constitutional indolence ; and he 
reconciled his feelings to a tyranny which he tolerated, 
under some self-flattering idea of submitting with resigna- 
tion to a calamity that he suffered. 

Some years after this, I read the " Agamemnon " of 
^Eschylus ; and then, in the prophetic horror with which 
Cassandra surveys the regal abode in Mycense, destined 
to be the scene of murders so memorable through the long 
traditions of the Grecian stage, murders that, many cen- 
turies after all the parties to them — perpetrators, suffer- 
ers, avengers — had become dust and ashes, kindled again 
into mighty life through a thousand years upon the vast 
theatres of Athens and Rome, I retraced the horrors, not 
prophetic but memorial, with which I myself had invested 
that humble dwelling of Dr. S. ; and read again, repeated 
in visionary proportions, the sufferings which there had 
darkened the days of people known to myself through two 
distinct successions — not, as was natural to expect, of 
parents first and then of children, but inversely of chil- 
dren and parents. Manchester was not Mycense. No, 
but by many degrees nobler. In some of the features 
most favorable to tragic effects, it was so ; and wanted 
only those idealizing advantages for withdrawing mean 
details which, are in the gift of distance and hazy antiquity. 
Even at that day Manchester was far larger, teeming with 
more and with stronger hearts ; and it contained a popula- 
tion the most energetic even in the modern world — how 
much more so, therefore, by comparison with any race in 
ancient Greece, inevitably rendered effeminate by depend- 
ence too generally upon slaves. Add to this superior 
energy in Lancashire, the immeasurably profounder feel- 
ings generated by the mysteries which stand behind Chris- 
tianity, as compared with the shallow mysteries that stood 



INTRODUCnON TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 123 

beliiiid paganism, and it would be easy to draw the in- 
ference, that, in the capacity for the infinite and the im- 
passioned, for horror and for pathos, Mycenoe could have 
liad no pretensions to measure lierself against Manchester. 
Not that I had drawn such an inference myself. Why 
should I ? there being nothing to suggest the points in 
which the two cities differed, but only the single one in 
which they agreed, viz., the dusky veil that overshadowed 
in both the noonday tragedies haunting their household 
recesses ; which veil was raised only to the gifted eyes of 
a Cassandra, or to eyes that, like my own, had experi- 
mentally become acquainted with them as facts. Pitiably 
mean is he that measures the relations of such cases by 
the scenical apparatus of purple and gold. That which 
never has been apparelled in royal robes, and hung with 
theatrical jewels, is but suffering from an accidental fraud, 
having the same right to them that any similar misery can 
have, or calamity upon an equal scale. These proportions 
are best measured from the fathoming ground of a real 
uncounterfeit sympathy. 

I have mentioned already that we had four male guar- 
dians, (a fifth being my mother.) These four were B., E., 
G., and H. The two consonants, B. and G., gave us little 
trouble. G., the wisest of the whole band, lived at a dis- 
tance of more than one hundred miles : him, therefore, we 
rarely saw ; but B., living within four miles of Grecnhay, 
washed his hands of us by inviting us, every now and then, 
to spend a few days at his house. 

At this house, which stood in the country, there was a 
family of amiable children, who were more skilfully trained 
in their musical studies than at that day was usual. They 
sang the old English glees and madrigals, and correctly 
enough for me, who, having, even at that childish age, a 
preternatural sensibility to music, had also, as may be 



124 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

supposed, the most entire want of musical knowledge. No 
blunders could do much to mar my pleasure. There first 
I heard the concertos of Corelli ; but also, which far more 
profoundly affected me, a few selections from Jomelli and 
Cimarosa. With Handel I had long been familiar, for the 
fames chorus singers of Lancashire sang continually at 
churches the most offective parts from his chief oratorios. 
Mozart was yet to come ; for, except perhaps at the opera 
in London, even at this time, his music was most imper- 
fectly diffused through England. But, above all, a thing 
which to my dying day I could never forget, at the house 
of this guardian I heard sung a long canon of Cherubini's. 
Forty years later I heard it again, and better sung ; but at 
that time I needed nothing better. It was sung by four 
male voices, and rose into a region of thrilling passion, 
such as my heart had always dimly craved and hungered 
after, but which now first interpreted itself, as a physical 
possibility, to my ear. 

My brother did not share my inexpressible delight ; his 
taste ran in a different channel ; and the arrangements of 
the house did not meet his approbation ; particularly this, 
that either Mrs. B. herself, or else the governess, was 
always present when the young ladies joined our society, 
which my brother considered particularly vulgar, since 
natural propriety and decorum should have whispered to 
an old lady that a young gentleman might have " things" 
to say to her daughters which he could not possibly intend 
for the general ear of eavesdroppers — things tending to 
the confidential or the sentimental, which none but a shame- 
less old lady would seek to participate ; by that means 
compelling a young man to talk as loud as if he were 
addressing a mob at Charing Cross, or reading the Riot 
Act. There were other out-of-door amusements, amongst 
which a swin.ii — which I mention for the sake of illustrat- 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 125 

ng the passive obedience which my brother levied upon 
me, either through my conscience, as mastered by his doc- 
trine of primogeniture, or, as in this case, through my sen- 
sibility to shame under his taunts of cowardice. It was a 
most ambitious swing, ascending to a height beyond any 
that I have since seen in fairs or pubHc gardens. Horror 
was at my heart regularly as the swing reached its most 
aerial altitude ; for the oily, swallow-like fluency of the 
swoop downwards threatened always to make me sick, in 
which it is probable that I must have relaxed my hold of 
the ropes, and have been projected, with fatal violence, to 
the ground. But, in defiance of all this miserable panic, I 
continued to swing whenever he tauntingly invited me. It 
was well that my brother's path in life soon ceased to coin- 
cide with my own, else I should infallibly have broken my 
neck in confronting perils which brought me neither honor 
nor profit, and in accepting defiances which, issue how they 
might, won self-reproach from myself, and sometimes a 
gayety of derision from liim. One only of these defiances 
I declined. There was a horse of this same guardian B.'s, 
who always, after listening to Cherubini's music, grew 
irritable to excess ; and, if any body mounted him, would 
seek relief to his wounded feelings in kicking, more or less 
violently, for an hour. This habit endeared him to my 
brother, who acknowledged to a propensity of the same 
amiable kind ; protesting that an abstract desire of kicking 
seized him always after hearing good performers on par- 
ticular instruments, especially the bagpipes. Of kicking ? 
But of kicking what or whom 7 I fear of kicking the ven- 
erable public collectively, creditors without exception, but 
also as many of the debtors as might be found at large ; 
doctors of medicine more especially, but with no absolute 
immunity for the majority of their patients ; Jacobins, but 
not the less anti-Jacobins ; every Calvinist, which seems 



126 



AUTOBIOGKAPHTC SKETCHES. 



reasonable ; but then also, which is intolerable, every 
Arminian. Is philosophy able to account for this morbid 
affection, and particularly when it takes the restricted form 
(as sometimes it does, in the bagpipe case) of seeking furi- 
ously to kick the piper, instead of paying him ? In this 
case, my brother was urgent with me to mount en croupe 
behind himself. But weak as I usually was, this proposal 
I resisted as an immediate suggestion of the fiend ; for I 
had heard, and have since known proofs of it, that a horse, 
when he is ingeniously vicious, sometimes has the power, 
in lashing out, of curving round his hoofs, so as to lodge 
them, by way of indorsement, in the small of his rider's 
back ; and, of course, he would have an advantage for such 
a purpose, in the case of a rider sitting on the crupper. 
That sole invitation I persisted in declining. 

A young gentleman had joined us as a fellow-student 
under the care of our tutor. He was an only son ; indeed, 
the only child of an amiable widow, whose love and hopes 
all centred in hwi. He was destined to inherit several 
separate estates, and a great deal had been done to spoil 
him by indulgent aunts; but his good natural disposition 
defeated all these efforts ; and, upon joining us, he proved 
to be a very amiable boy, clever, quick at learning, and 
abundantly courageous. In the summer months, his mother 
usually took a house out in the country, sometimes on one 
side of Manchester, sometimes on another. At these rus- 
ticating seasons, he had often mucn farther to come than 
ourselves, and on that account he rode on horseback. 
Generally it was a fierce mountain pony that he rode ; and 
it was worth while to cultivate the pony's acquintance, for 
the sake of understanding the extent to which the fiend can 
sometimes incarnate himself in a horse. I do not trouble 
the reader with any account of his tricks, and drolleries, 
and scoundrclisms ; but this I may mention, that he had the 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OP STRIFE. 127 

propensity ascribed many centuries ago to the Scandinavian 
horses for sharing and practically asserting his share in the 
angry passions of a battle. He would fight, or attempt to 
fight, on his rider's side, by biting, rearing, and suddenly 
wheeling round, for the purpose of lashing out when he 
found himself within kicking range.* This little monster 
was coal black ; and, in virtue of his carcass, would not have 
seemed very formidable ; but his head made amends — it 
was the head of a buffalo, or of a bison, and his vast jungle 
of mane was the mane of a lion. His eyes, by reason of 
this intolerable and unshorn mane, one did not often see, 
except as lights that sparkled in the rear of a thicket ; but, 
once seen, they were not easily forgotten, for their malig- 
nity was diabolic. A few miles more or less being a matter 
of indifference to one who was so well mounted, O. would 
sometimes ride out with us to the field of battle ; and, by 
manoeuvring so as to menace the enemy on the flanks, in 
skirmishes he did good service. But at length came a day 
of pitched battle. The enemy had mustered in tinusual 
strength, and would certainly have accomplished the usual 
result of putting us to flight with more than usual ease, 
but, under the turn which things took, their very numbers 
aided their overthrow, by deepening their confusion. O. 
had, on this occasion, accompanied us ; and, as he had 
hitherto taken no very decisive part in the war, confining 
himself to distant " demonstrations," the enemy did not 
much regard his presence in the field. This carelessnesj 
threw them into a dense mass, upon which my brother's 
rapid eye saw instantly the opportunity offered for operat- 
ing most effectually by a charge. O. saw it too ; and, 



* This was a manoeuvre regularly taught to the Austrian cavalry 
in the middle of the last century, as a ready way of opening the doors 
of sottages. 



128 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

happening to have his spurs on, he complied cheerfully 
with my brother's suggestion. He had the advantage of a 
sHght descent : the wicked pony went down " with a will ; " 
his echoing hoofs drew the general gaze upon him ; his 
head, his leonine mane, his diabolic eyes, did the rest ; and 
in a moment the whole hostile array had broken, and was 
in rapid flight across the brick fields. I leave the reader 
to judge whether " Te Deum " would be sung on that ni^ht. 
A Gazette Extraordinary was issued ; and my brother had 
really some reason for his assertion, " that in conscience 
he could not think of comparing Cannse to this smashing 
defeat;" since at Cannse many brave men had refused to 
fly — the consul himself, Terentius Varro, amongst them ; 
but, in the present rout, there was no Terentius Varro — 
every body fled. 

The victory, indeed, considered in itself, was complete. 
But it had consequences which we had not looked for. In 
the ardor of our conflict, neither my brother nor myself 
had remarked a stout, square-built man, mounted on an un- 
easy horse, who sat quietly in his saddle as spectator of 
the battle, and, in fact, as the sole non-combatant present. 
This man, however, had been observed by O., both before 
and after his own brilliant charge ; and, by the description, 
there could be no doubt that it had been our guardian B., 
as also, by the description of the horse, we could as little 
doubt that he had been mounted on Cherubini. My 
brother's commentary was in a tone of bitter complaint, 
that so noble an opportunity should have been lost for 
strengthening O.'s charge. But the consequences of this 
incident were graver than we anticipated. A general 
board of our guardians, vowels and consonants, was sum- 
moned to investigate the matter. The origin of the feud, 
or " war," as my brother called it, was inquired into. As 
well might the war of Troy or the purser's accounts from 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 129 

the Argonautic expedition have been overhauled. Ancient 
night and chaos had closed over the " mcunabula belli ; " 
and that point was given up in despair. But what hindered 
a general pacification, no matter in how many wrongs 
the original dispute had arisen ? Who stopped the way 
which led to peace ? Not we, was our firm declaration ; 
we were most pacifically inclined, and ever had been; 
we were, in fact, little saints. But the enemy could not 
be brought to any terms of accommodation. '* That we 
will try," said the vowel amongst our guardians, Mr. E. 
He, being a magistrate, had naturally some weight with the 
proprietors of the cotton factory. The foremen of the 
several floors were summoned, and gave it as their humble 
opinion that we, the aristocratic party in the war, were as 
bad as the sans culottes — " not a pin to choose between us." 
Well, but no matter for the past : could any plan be devised 
for a pacific future ? Not easily. The workpeople were so 
thoroughly independent of their employers, and so care- 
less of their displeasure, that finally this only settlement 
was available as wearing any promise of permanence, viz., 
that we should alter our hours, so as not to come into col- 
lision with the exits or returns of the boys. 

Under this arrangement, a sort of hollow armistice pre- 
vailed for some time ; but it was beginning to give way, 
when suddenly an internal change in our own home put an 
end to the war forever. My brother, amongst his many 
accomplishments, was distinguished for his skill in drawing. 
Some of his sketches had been shown to Mr. De Louther- 
bourg, an academician well known in those days, esteemed 
even in these days, after he has been dead for forty or fifty 
years, and personally a distinguished favorite with the king, 
(George III.) He pronounced a very flattering opinion 
upon my brother's promise of excellence. This being 
known, a fee of a thousand guineas was offered to Mr. L. 
9 



130 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

by the guardians ; and finally that gentleman took charge 
of my brother as a pupil. Now, therefore, my brother, 
King of Tigrosylvania, scourge of Gombroon, separated 
from me ; and, as it turned out, forever. I never saw him 
again ; and, at Mr. De L.'s house in Hammersmith, before 
he had completed his sixteenth year, he died of typhus 
fever. And thus it happened that a little gold dust skil- 
fully applied put an end to wars that else threatened to ex- 
tend into a Carthaginian length. In one week's time 

" Hi motus animonim atque hagc certamina tanta 
Pulveris exigui jactu compressa qui^runt." 



Here I had terminated this chapter, as at a natural 
pause, which, whilst shutting out forever my eldest brother 
from the reader's sight and from my own, necessarily at 
the same moment worked a permanent revolution in the 
character of my daily life. Two such changes, and both 
so abrupt, indicated imperiously the close of one era and 
the opening of another. The advantages, indeed, which 
my brother had over me in years, in physical activities of 
every kind, in decision of purpose, and in energy of will, — 
all which advantages, besides, borrowed a ratification from 
an obscure sense, on my part, of duty as incident to what 
seemed an appointment of Providence, — inevitably had 
controlled, and for years to come would have controlled, 
the free spontaneous movements of a contemplative dreamer 
like myself. Consequently, this separation, which proved 
an eternal one, and contributed to deepen my constitutional 
propensity to gloomy meditation, had for me (partly on 
that -account, but much more through the sudden birth of 
perfect independence which so unexpectedly it opened) the 
value of a revolutionary experience. A new date, a new 
starting piint, a redemption (as it might be called) into th« 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 131 

golden sleep of halcyon quiet, after everlasting storms, 
suddenly dawned upon me ; and not as any casual inter- 
calation of holidays that would come to an end, but, for 
any thing that appeared to the contrary, as the perpetual 
tenor of my future career. No longer was the factory a 
Carthage for me : if any obdurate old Cato there were who 
found his amusement in denouncing h whh a daWy ^'Dele7ida 
est,'' take notice, (I said silently to myself,) that I acknowl- 
edge no such tiger for a friend of mine. Nevermore was 
the bridge across the Irwell a bridge of sighs for me. And 
the meanest of the factory population — thanks be to their 
discrimination — despised my pretensions too entirely to 
waste a thought or a menace upon a cipher so abject. 

This change, therefore, being so sudden and so total, 
ought to signalize itself externally by a commensurate 
break in the narrative. A new chapter, at the least, with 
a hugh interspace of blank white paper, or even a new 
book, ought rightfully to solemnize so profound a revolu- 
tion. And virtually it shall. But, according to the general 
agreement of antiquity, it is not felt as at all disturbing to 
the unity of that event which winds up the " Iliad," viz., 
the death of Hector, that Homer expands it circumstan- 
tially into the whole ceremonial of his funeral obsequies ; 
and upon that same principle I — when looking back to this 
abrupt close of all connection with my brother, whether 
in my character of major general or of potentate trem- 
bling daily for my people — am reminded that the very last 
morning of this connection had its own separate distinction 
from all other mornings, in a way that entitles it to its own 
separate share in the general commemoration. A shadow 
fell upon this particular morning as from a cloud of danger, 
that lingered for a moment over our heads, might seem 
even to muse and hesitate, and then sullenly passed away 
nito distant quarters. It is noticeable that a danger which 



132 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

approaches, but wheels away, — which threatens, but finally 
forbears to strike, — is more interesting by much on a dis- 
tant retrospect than the danger which accomplishes its 
mission. The Alpine precipice, down which many pil- 
grims have fallen, is passed without much attention ; but 
that precipice, within one inch of which a traveller has 
passed unconsciously in the dark, first tracing his peril 
along the snowy margin on the next morning, becomes 
invested with an attraction of horror for all who hear the 
story. The dignity of mortal danger ever after consecrates 
the spot ; and, in this particular case which I am now 
recalling, the remembrance of such a danger consecrates 
the day. 

That day was amongst the most splendid in a splendid 
June : it was — to borrow the line of Wordsworth — 

" One of those heavenly days which cannot die ; " 

and, early as it was at that moment, we children, all six 
of us that then survived, were already abroad upon the 
lawn. There were two lawns at Greenhay in the shrub- 
bery that invested three sides of the house : one of these, 
which ran along one side of the house, extended to a little 
bridge traversed by the gates of entrance. The central 
gate admitted carriages : on each side of this was a smaller 
gate for foot passengers ; and, in a family containing so 
many as six children, it mJay be supposed that often enough 
one or other of the gates was open ; which, most fortunate- 
ly, on this day was not the case. Along the margin of 
this side lawn ran a little brook, which had been raised to a 
uniform level, and kept up by means of a wear at the point 
where it quitted the premises ; after which it resumed its 
natural character of wildness, as it trotted on to the little 
hamlet of Greenhill. This brook my brother was at one 
time disposed to treat as Remus treated the infant walls of 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 133 

Rome ; but, on maturer thoughts, having built a fleet of- 
rafts, he treated it more respectfully ; and this morning, as 
will be seen, the breadth of the little brook did us " yeo- 
man's service." Me at one time he had meant to put on 
board this fleet, as his man Friday ; and I had a fair pros- 
pect of first entering life in the respectable character of su- 
percargo. But it happened that the current carried his 
rafts and himself over the wear ; which, he assured us, was 
no accident, but a lesson by way of practice in the art of 
contending with the rapids of the St. Lawrence and other 
Canadian streams. However, as the danger had been con- 
siderable, he was prohibited from trying such experiments 
with me. On the centre of the lawn stood my eldest sur- 
viving sister, Mary, and my brother William. Round him, 
attracted (as ever) by his inexhaustible opulence of thought 
and fun, stood, laughing and dancing, my youngest sister, 
a second Jane, and my youngest brother Henry, a posthu- 
mous child, feeble, and in his nurse's arms, but on this 
morning showing signs of unusual animation and of sym- 
pathy with the glorious promise of the young June day. 
Whirling round on his heel, at a little distance, and utterly 
abstracted from all around him, my next brother, Richard, 
he that had caused so much affliction by his incorrigible 
morals to the Sultan Amurath, pursued his own solitary 
thoughts — whatever those might be. And, finally, as re- 
gards myself, it happened that I was standing close to the 
edge of the brook, looking back at intervals to the group 
of five children and two nurse maids who occupied the 
centre of the lawn ; time, about an hour before our break- 
fast, or about two hours before the world's breakfast, — i. e., 
a little after seven, — when as yet in shady parts of the 
grounds the dazzling jewelry of the early dews had not en- 
tirely exhaled. So standing, and so occupied, suddenly we 
were alarmed by shouts as of some great mob manifestly 



134 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

in rapid motion, and probably, at this instant, taking the 
right-angled turn into the lane connecting Greenhay with 
the Oxford Road. The shouts indicated hostile and head- 
long pursuit : within one minute another right-angled turn 
in the lane itself brought the uproar fully upon the ear ; 
and it became evident that some imminent danger — of 
what nature it was impossible to guess — must be hastily 
^earing us. We were all rooted to the spot ; and all 
turned anxiously to the gates, which happily seemed to be 
closed. Had this been otherwise, we should have had no 
time to apply any remedy whatever, and the consequences 
must probably have involved us all. In a few seconds, a 
powerful dog, not much above a furlong ahead of his pur- 
suers, wheeled into sight. We all saw him pause at the 
gates ; but, finding no ready access through the iron lat- 
tice work that protected the side battlements of the little 
bridge, and the pursuit being so hot, he resumed his course 
along the outer margin of the brook. Coming opposite 
to myself, he made a dead stop. I had thus an opportuni- 
ty of looking him steadily in the face ; which I did, with- 
out more fear than belonged naturally to a case of so. much 
hurry, and to me, in particular, of mystery. I had never 
heard of hydrophobia. But necessarily connecting the 
furious pursuit with the dog that i;ow gazed at me from 
the opposite side of the water, and feeling obliged to pre- 
sume that he had made an assault upon somebody or other, 
I looked searchingly into his eyes, and observed that they 
seemed glazed, and as if in a dreamy state, but at the same 
time suffused with some watery discharge, while his mouth 
was covered with masses of white foam. He looked most 
earnestly at myself and the group beyond me ; but he 
made no eflTort whatever to cross the brook, and apparently 
had not the energy to attempt it by a flying leap. My 
brother William, who did not in the least suspect the real 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE. 135 

clanger, invited the dog to tjy liis chance in a leap — as- 
suring him that, if he succeeded, he would knight him on 
the spot. The temptation of a knighthood, however, did 
not prove sufficient. A very few seconds brought his pur- 
suers within sight ; and steadily, without sound or gesture 
of any kind, he resumed his flight in the only direction 
open to him, viz., by a field path across stiles to Greenhill. 
Half an hour later he would have met a bevy of children 
going to a dame's school, or carrying milk to rustic neigh- 
bors. As it was, the early morning kept the road clear in 
front. But behind immense was the body of agitated pur- 
suers. Leading the chase came, probably, half a troop of 
light cavalry, all on foot, nearly all in their stable dresses, 
and armed generally with pitchforks, though some eight or 
ten carried carabines. Half mingled with these, and very 
little in the rear, succeeded a vast miscellaneous mob, that 
had gathered on the chase as it hurried through the purlieus 
of Deansgate, and all that populous suburb of Manchester. 
From some of these, who halted to recover breath, we ob- 
tained an explanation of the affair. About a mile and a 
half from Greenhay stood some horse barracks, occupied 
usually by an entire regiment of cavalry. A large dog — 
one of a multitude that haunted the barracks — had for 
some days manifested as increasing suUenness, snapping 
occasionally at dogs and horses, but finally at men. Upon 
this, he had been tied up ; but in some way he had this 
morning liberated himself: two troop horses he had imme- 
diately bitten ; and had made attacks upon several of the 
men, who fortunately parried these attacks by means of 
the pitchforks standing ready to their hands. On this evi- 
dence, coupled with the knowledge of his previous illness, 
he was summarily condemned as mad ; and the general 
pursuit commenced, which brought all parties (hunters and 
game) sweeping so wildly past the quiet grounds of Green- 



133 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

liay. The sequel of the affair was this : none of the cara- 
bineers succeeded in getting a shot at the dog ; in conse- 
quence of which, the chase lasted for 17 miles nominally ; 
but, allowing for all the doublings and headings back of 
the dog, by computation for about 24 ; and finally, in a 
state of utter exhaustion, he was run into and killed, some- 
where in Cheshire. Of the two horses whom he had bitten, 
both treated alike, one died in a state of furious hydropho- 
bia some two months later, but the other (though the more 
seriously wounded of the two) manifested no symptoms 
whatever of constitutional derangement. And thus it hap- 
pened that for me this general event of separation from my 
eldest brother, and the particular morning on which it oc- 
curred, were each for itself separately and equally memorable. 
Freedom won, and death escaped, almost in the same hour, — 
freedom from a yoke of such secret and fretful annoyance 
as none could measure but myself, and death probably 
through the fiercest of torments, — these double cases of 
deliverance, so sudden and so unlookedfor, signalized by 
what heraldically might have been described as a two-head- 
ed memorial, the establishment of an epoch in my life. 
Not only was the chapter of Infancy thus solemnly fin- 
ished forever, and the record closed, but — which cannot 
often happen — the chapter was closed pompously and 
conspicuously by what the early printers through the 15th 
and 16th centuries would have called a bright and illumi- 
nated colophon. 



CHAPTER III. 
INFANT LITERATURE. 

" The child,'''' says Wordsworth, " is father of the man ; " 
thus calling into conscious notice the fact, else faintly or 
not at all perceived, that whatsoever is seen in the maturest 
adult, blossoming and bearing fruit, must have preexisted 
by way of germ in the infant. Yes ; all that is now broadly 
emblazoned in the man once was latent — seen or not seen 
— as a vernal bud in the child. But not, therefore, is it 
true inversely, that all which preexists in the child finds 
its development in the man. Rudiments and tendencies, 
which might have found, sometimes by accidental, do not 
find, sometimes under the killing frost of counter forces, 
can7iot find, their natural evolution. Infancy, therefore, is 
to be viewed, not only as part of a larger world that waits 
for its final complement in old age, but also as a separate 
wor?d itself; part of a continent, but also a distinct penin- 
sula. Most of what he has, the grown-up man inherits 
from his infant self; but it does not follow that he always 
enters upon the whole of his natural inheritance. 

Childhood, therefore, in the midst of its intellectual weak- 
ness, and sometimes even by means of this weakness, en- 
joys a limited privilege of strength. The heart in this sea- 
son of life is apprehensive, and, where its sensibilities are 

137 



138 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

profound, is endowed with a special power of listening for 
the tones of truth — hidden, struggling, or remote ; for the 
knowledge being then narrow, the interest is narrow in the 
objects of knowledge ; consequently the sensibilities are 
not scattered, are not multiplied, are not crushed and con- 
founded (as afterwards they are) under the burden of that 
distraction which lurks in the infinite littleness of details. 

That mighty silence which infancy is thus privileged 
by nature and by position to enjoy cooperates with an- 
other source of power, — almost peculiar to youth and 
youthful circumstances, — which Wordsworth also was the 
first person to notice. It belongs to a profound experi- 
ence of the relations subsisting between ourselves and 
nature — that not always are we called upon to seek ; 
sometimes, and in childhood above all, we are sought. 

" Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum 
Of things forever speaking, 
That nothing of itself \s')S\. come, 
But we must still be seeking ? " 

And again : — 

" Nor less I deem that there are powers 

Which of themselves our minds impress ; 
And we can feed this mind of ours 
In a wise passiveness." 

These cases of infancy, reached at intervals by special 
revelations, or creating for itself, through its privileged 
silence of heart, authentic whispers of truth, or beauty, or 
power, have some analogy to those other cases, more di- 
rectly supernatural, in which (according to the old tradi- 
tional faith of our ancestors) deep messages of admonition 
reached an individual through sudden angular deflexions 
of words, uttered or written, that had not been originally 
addressed to himself. Of these there were two distinct 



INFANT LITERATURE. 139 

classes — those where the person concerned had been 
purely passive ; and, secondly, those in which he himself 
had to some extent cooperated. The first class have been 
noticed by Cowper, the poet, and by George Herbert, the 
well-known pious brother of the still better-known infidel. 
Lord Herbert, (of Cherbury,) in a memorable sonnet ; scin- 
tillations they are of what seem nothing less than provi- 
dential lights oftentimes arresting our attention, from the 
very centre of what else seems the blank darkness of 
chance and blind accident. " Books lying open, millions 
of surprises," — these are among the cases to which Her- 
bert (and to which Cowper) alludes, — books, that is to 
say, left casually open without design or consciousness, 
from which some careless passer-by, when throwing the 
most negligent of glances upon the page, has been startled 
by a solitary word lying, as it were, in ambush, waiting 
and lurking for liim^ and looking at him steadily as an eye 
searching the haunted places in his conscience. These cases 
are in principle identical with those of the second class, 
where the inquirer himself cooperated, or was not entire- 
ly passive ; cases such as those which the Jews called 
Bath-col, or daughter of a voice, (the echo* augury,) viz., 

* " Echo aurjury.^'' — The daughter of a voice meant an echo, the 
original sound being viewed as the mother, and the reverberation, or 
secondary sound, as the daughter. Analogically, therefore, the direct 
and original meaning of any word, or sentence, or counsel, was the 
mother meaning ; but the secondary, or mystical meaning, created by 
peculiar circumstances for one separate and peculiar ear, the daugh- 
ter meaning, or echo meaning. This mode of augury, through second- 
ary interpretations of chance words, is not, as some readers may 
fancy, an old, obsolete, or merely Jewish form of seeking the divine 
pleasure. About a century ago, a man so famous, and by repute so 
unsuperstitious, as Dr. Doddridge, was guided in a primary act of 
choice, influencing his whole after life, by a few chance words from a 
cidld reading aloud to his mother. With the other mode of augury, 



140 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

where a man, perplexed in judgment and sighing for some 
determining counsel, suddenly heard from a stranger in 
some unlooked-for quarter words not meant for himself, 
but clamorously applying to the difficulty besetting him. 
In these instances, the mystical word, that carried a secret 
meaning and message to one sole ear in the world, was 
unsought for : that constituted its virtue and its divinity ; 
and to arrange means wilfully for catching at such casual 
words, would have defeated the purpose. A well-known 
variety of augury, conducted upon this principle, lay in the 
" Sortes Biblicoe," where the Bible was the oracular book 
consulted, and far more extensively at a later period in the 
" Sortes Virgilianoe," * where the ^neid was the oracle 
consulted. 

viz., that noticed by Herbert, where not the ear but the eye presides, 
catching at some word that chance has thrown upon the eye in some 
book left open by negligence, or opened at random by one's self, 
Cowper, the poet, and his friend Newton, with scores of others that 
could be mentioned, were made acquainted through practical results 
and personal experiences that in their belief were memorably im- 
portant. 

* ^^ Sortes Vii-giliancB.^^ — Upon what principle could it have been 
that Virgil was adopted as the oracular fountain in such a case 1 An 
author so limited even as to bulk, and much more limited as regards 
compass of thought and variety of situation or character, was about 
the worst that pagan literature offered. But I myself once threw out 
a suggestion, which (if it is sound) exposes a motive in behalf of such 
a choice that would be likely to overrule the strong motives against 
it. That motive was, unless my whole speculation is groundless, the 
very same which led Dante, in an age of ignorance, to select Virgil 
as his guide in Hades. The seventh son of a seventh son has always 
traditionally been honored as the depositary of magical and other 
supernatural gifts. And the same traditional privilege attached to 
any man whose maternal grandfather was a sorcerer. Now, it hap- 
pened that Virgil's maternal grandfather bore the name of Magus. 
This, by the ignorant multitude in Naples, &c., who had been taught 
to reverence his tomb, was translated from its true acceptation as a 



INFANT LITEEATURE. 141 

Something analogous to these spiritual transfigurations 
of a word or a sentence, by a bodily organ (eye or ear) 
that has been touched with virtue for evoking the spiritual 
echo lurking in its recesses, belongs, perhaps, to every im- 
passioned mind for the kindred result of forcing out the 
peculiar beauty, pathos, or grandeur that may happen to 
lodge (unobserved by ruder forms of sensibility) in special 
passages scattered up and down literature. Meantime, I 
wish the reader to understand that, in putting forward the 
peculiar power with which my childish eye detected a 
grandeur or a pomp of beauty not seen by others in some 
special instances, I am not arrogating more than it is law- 
ful for every man the very humblest to arrogate, viz., an 
individuality of mental consthution so far applicable to 
special and exceptionable cases as to reveal in them a life 
and power of beauty which others (and sometimes which 
all others) had missed. 

The first case belongs to the march (or boundary) line 
between my eighth and ninth years ; the others to a period 
earlier by two and a half years. But T notice the latest 
case before the others, as it connected itself with a great 
epoch in the movement of my intellect. There is a dignity 
to every man in the mere historical assigning, if accurate- 
ly he can assign, the first dawning upon his mind of any 
godlike faculty or apprehension, and more especially if that 
first dawning happened to connect itself with circumstances 
of individual or incommunicable splendor. The passage 

proper name, to a false one as an appellative : it was supposed to in- 
dicate, not the name, but the profession of the old gentleman. And 
thus, according to the belief of the lazzaroni, that excellent Chris- 
tian, P. Virgilius Maro, had stepped by mere succession and right of 
inheritance into his wicked old grandpapa's infernal powers and 
knowledge, both of which he exercised, doubtless, for centuries with- 
out blame, and fur t:ic bci.efit of the faithful. 



142 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

which I am going to cite first of all revealed to me the 
immeasurablenpss of the morally sublime. What was it, 
and where was it ? Strange the reader will think it, and 
strange * it is, that a case of colossal sublimity should first 
emerge from such a writer as Phcedrus, the ^sopian fabu- 
list. A great mistake it was, on the part of Doctor S., 
that the second book in the Latin language which I was 
summoned to study should have been Phsedrus — a writer 
ambitious of investing the simplicity, or rather homeliness, 
of ^sop with aulic graces and satiric brilliancy. But so 
it was ; and Phsedrus naturally towered into enthusiasm 
when he had occasion to mention that the most intellectual 
of all races amongst men, viz., the Athenians, had raised 
a mighty statue to one who belonged to the same class in 
a social sense as himself, viz., the class of slaves, and rose 
above that class by the same intellectual power applying 
itself to the same object, viz., the moral apologue. These 
were the two lines in which that glory of the sublime, so 
stirring to my childish sense, seemed to burn as in some 
mighty pharos : — 

" ^sopo statuam ingentem posuere Attici ; 
Servumque collocdrunt eterna in basi : " 

A colossal statue did the Athenians raise to Msop ; and a 
poor pariah slave they planted upon an everlasting pedes- 
tal. I have not scrupled to introduce the word pariah^ 
because in that way only could I decipher to the reader by 
what particular avenue it was that the sublimity which I fancy 
in the passage reached my heart. This sublimity originated 

* ' StrangeJ &c — Yet I remember that, in " The Pursuits of 
Literature," — a satirical poem once universally famous, — the lines 
about Mnemosyne and her daughters, the Pierides, are cited as ex- 
hibiting matchless suldimity. Perhaps, therefore, if carefully searched, 
this writer may contain other jewels not yet appreciated. 



INFANT LITERATURE. 143 

in the awful chasm, in the abyss that no eye could bridge, 
between the pollution of slavery, — the being a man, yet 
without right or lawful power belonging to a man, — be- 
tween this unutterable degradation and the starry althude 
of the slave at that moment when, upon the unveiling of 
his everlasting statue, all the armies of the earth might be 
conceived as presenting arms to the emancipated man, 
the cymbals and kettledrums of kings as drowning the 
W'hispers of his ignominy, and the harps of all his sisters 
that wept over slavery yet joining in one choral gratula- 
tion to the regenerated slave. I assign the elements of 
what I did in reality feel at that time, which to the reader 
may seem extravagant, and by no means of what it was 
reasonable to feel. But, in order that full justice may be 
done to my childish self, I must point out to the reader 
another source of what strikes me as real grandeur. 
Horace, that exquisite master of the lyre, and that most 
shallow of critics, it is needless to say that in those days I 
had not read. Consequently I knew nothing of his idle 
canon, that the opening of poems must be humble and 
subdued. But my own sensibility told me how much of 
additional grandeur accrued to these two lines as being the 
immediate and all-pompous opening of the poem. The 
same feeling I had received from the crashing overture to 
the grand chapter of Daniel — " Belshazzar the king made 
a great feast to a thousand of his lords." But, above all, 
I felt this effect produced in the two opening lines of 
" Macbeth : " — 

" Whex — (but watch that an emphasis of thunder dTclIs upcn that 
word 'when') — 

When shall we three meet again — 

In thunder, lightning, or in rain ? " 

What an orchestral crash bursts upon the ear in that all- 
shattering question ! And one syllable of apologetic prep- 



144 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

aration, so as to meet the surjcrestion of Horace, would have 
the effect of emasculating the whole tremendous alarum. 
The passage in Phsedrus differs thus far from that in 
" Macbeth," that the first line, simply stating a matter of 
%ct, witli no more of sentiment than belongs to the word 
ingentem, and to the antithesis between the two parties so 
enormously divided, — ^sop the slave and the Athenians, 
— must be read as an appoggiatura^ or hurried note of in- 
troduction flying forward as if on wings to descend with 
the fury and weight of a thousand orchestras upon the 
immortal passion of the second line — " Servumque col- 
locarunt Eterna in Basi." This passage from Phajdrus, 
which might be briefly designated The Apotheosis of the 
Slave^ gave to me my first grand and jubilant sense of the 
moral sublime. 

Two other experiences of mine of the same class had 
been earlier, and these I had shared with my sister Eliza- 
beth. The first was derived from the " Arabian Nights." 
Mrs. Barbauld, a lady now very nearly forgotten,* then 

* " Very nearly forgotten^ — Not quite, however. It must be 
hard upon eighty or eighty-five years since she first commenced 
authorship — a period which allows time for a great deal of forget- 
ting 5 and yet, in the very week when I am revising this passage, I 
observe advertised a new edition, attractively illustrated, of the 
♦' Evenings at Home " — a joint work of Mrs. Barbauld's and her 
brother's, (the elder Dr. Aikin.) Mrs. Barbauld was exceedingly 
clever. Her mimicry of Dr. Johnson's style was the best of all that 
exist. Her blank verse " Washing Day," descriptive of the discom- 
forts attending a mistimed visit to a rustic friend, under the afl^iction 
of a family washing, is picturesquely circumstantiated. And her 
prose hymns for children have left upon my childish recollection a 
deep impression of solemn beauty and simplicity. Coleridge, who 
scattered his sneering compliments very liberally up and down the 
world, used to call the elder Dr. Aikin (allusively to Pope's well- 
known line — 

" No craving void left aching in the breast ") 



INFANT LITERATURE. M5 

filled a large space in the public eye ; in fact, as a writer 
for children, she occupied the place from about 1780 to 
1805 which, from 1805 to 1835, was occupied by Miss 
Edgeworth. Only, as unhappily Miss Edgeworth is also 
now very nearly forgotten, this is to explain ignotum per 
ignotius^ or at least one ignotum by another ignotum. 
However, since it cannot be helped, this unknown and also 
most well-known woman, having occasion, in the days of 
her glory, to speak of the " Arabian Nights," insisted on 
Aladdin, and, secondly, on Sinbad, as the two jewels of the 
collection. Now, on the contrary, my sister and myself 
pronounced Sinbad to be very bad, and Aladdin to be 
pretty nearly the worst, and upon grounds that still strike 
me as just. For, as to Sinbad, it is not a story at all, but 
a mere succession of adventures, having no unity of inter- 
est whatsoever ; and in Alladin, after the possession of the 
lamp has been once secured by a pure accident, the story 
ceases to move. All the rest is a mere record of uphol- 
stery : how this saloon was finished to-day, and that window 
on the next day, with no fresh incident whatever, except 
the single and transient misfortune arising out of the 
advantage given to the magician by the unpardonable 
stupidity of Aladdin in regard to the lamp. But, whilst 
my sister and I agreed in despising Aladdin so much as 
almost to be on the verge of despising the queen of all the 
bluestockings for so ill-directed a preference, one solitary 
section there was of that tale which fixed and fascinated 
my gaze, in a degree that I never afterwards forgot, and 
did not at that time comprehend. The sublimity which it 
involved was mysterious and unfathomable as regarded 

an aching void; and the nephew, Dr. Arthur Aikin, by way of variety, 
a void aching ; whilst Mrs. Barbaulcl he designated as that pleonasm 
of nakedness ; since, as if it were not enough to be 6are, she was also 
bald. 

10 



146 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

any key which I possessed for deciphering its law or origin. 
Made restless by the blind sense which I had of its gran- 
deur, I could not for a moment succeed in finding out why 
jt should be grand. Unable to explain my own impressions 
in " Aladdin," I did not the less obstinately persist in be- 
lieving a sublimity which I could not understand. It was, 
in fact, one of those many important cases which else- 
where I have called involutes of human sensibility ; combi- 
nations in which the materials of future thought or feeling 
are carried as imperceptibly into the mind as vegetable 
seeds are carried variously combined through the atmos- 
phere, or by means of rivers, by birds, by winds, by 
waters, into remote countries. But the reader shall judge 
for himself. At the opening of the tale, a magician Uving 
in the central depths of Africa is introduced to us as one 
made aware by his secret art of an enchanted lamp en- 
dowed with supernatural powers available for the service 
of any man whatever who should get it into his keeping. 
But tliere lies the difficulty. The lamp is imprisoned in 
subterraneous chambers, and from these it can be releasee? 
only by the hands of an innocent child. But this is no 
enough : the child must have a special horoscope writtei 
in the stars, or else a peculiar destiny written in his consti- 
tution, entitling him to take possession of the lamp. Where 
shall such a child be found ? Where shall he be sought ? 
The magician knows : he applies his ear to the earth ; he 
listens to the innumerable sounds of footsteps that at the 
moment of his experiment are tormenting the surface of 
the globe ; and amongst them all, at a distance of six 
thousand miles, playing in the streets of Bagdad, he distin- 
guishes the peculiar steps of the child Aladdin. Through 
this mighty labyrinth of sounds, which Archimedes, aided 
by his arenarius^ could not sum or disentangle, one solitary 
infant's feet are distinctly recognized on the banks of the 



INFANT LITERATURE. 147 

Tigris, distant by four hundred and forty days' march of 
an army or a caravan. These feet, these steps, the sor- 
cerer knows, and challenges in his heart as the feet, as the 
steps of that innocent boy, through whose hands only he 
could have a chance for reaching the lamp. 

It follows, therefore, that the wicked magician exercises 
two demoniac gifts. First, he has the power to disarm 
Babel itself of its confusion. Secondly, after having laid 
aside as useless many billions of earthly sounds, and after 
having fastened his murderous * attention upon one insu- 
lated tread, he has the power, still more unsearchable, of 
reading in that hasty movement an alphabet of new and 
infinite symbols ; for, in order that the sound of the child's 
feet should be significant and intelligible, that sound must 
open into a gamut of infinite compass. The pulses of the 
heart, the motions of the will, the phantoms of the brain 
must repeat themselves in secret hieroglyphics uttered by 
the flying footsteps. Even the inarticulate or brutal 
sounds of the globe must be all so many languages and 
ciphers that somewhere have their corresponding keys — 
have their own grammar and syntax ; and thus the least 
things in the universe must be secret mirrors to the greatest. 
Palmistry has something of the same dark sublimity. All 
this, by rude efforts at explanation that mocked my feeble 
command of words, I communicated to my sister ; and 
she, whose sympathy with my meaning was always so 
quick and true, often outrunning electrically my imperfect 
expressions, felt the passage in the same way as myself,t 

* " Murderous ; " for it was his intention to leave Aladdin immured 
in the subterraneous chambers. 

t The reader will not understand me as attributing to the Arabian 
originator of Aladdin all the sentiment of the case as I have endeav- 
ored to disentangle it. He spoke what he did not understand ; for, 
as to sentiment of any kind, all Orientals are obtuse and impassive. 



148 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

but not, perhaps, in the same degree. She was much be- 
yond me in velocity of apprehension and many other qual- 
ities of intellect. Here only, viz., on cases of the dark 
sublime, where it rested upon dim abstractions, and when 
no particular trait o^ moral grandeur came forward, we dif- 
fered — differed, that is to say, as by more or by less. Else, 
even as to the sublime, and numbers of other intellectual 
questions which rose up to us from our immense reading, we 
drew together with a perfect fidelity of sympathy ; and there- 
fore I pass willingly from a case which exemplified one of our 
rare differences to another, not less interesting for itself, 
which illustrated (what occurred so continually) the intensity 
of our agreement. 

No instance of noble revenge that ever I heard of seems 
so effective, if considered as applied to a noble-minded 
wrong doer, or in any case as so pathetic. From what 
quarter the story comes originally, was unknown to us at 
the time, and I have never met it since ; so that possibly 
it may be new to the reader. We found it in a book writ- 
ten for the use of his own children by Dr. Percival, the 
physician who attended at Greenhay. Dr. P. was a literary 
man, of elegant tastes and philosophic habits. Some of his 
papers may be found in the " Manchester Philosophic 
Transactions ; " and these I have heard mentioned with 
respect, though, for myself, I have no personal knowledge 
of them. Some, presumption meantime arises in their 
favor from the fact that he had been a favored correspond- 
ent of the most eminent Frenchmen at that time who culti- 
vated literature jointly with philosophy. Voltaire, Diderot 
Maupertuis, Condorcet, and D'Alembert had all treated him 



There are other sublimities (some, at least) in the "Arabian Nights," 
which first become such — a gas that first kindles — when entering 
into combination with new elements in a Christian atmosphere. 



INFANT LITERATURE. 149 

with distinction ; and I have heard my mother say that, in 
days before I or my sister could have known him, he 
attempted vainly to interest her in these French luminaries 
by reading extracts from their frequent letters ; which, 
however, so far from reconciling her to the letters, or to 
the writers of the letters, had the unhappy effect of rivet- 
ing her dislike (previously budding) to the doctor, as their 
reciiiver, and the proneur of their authors. The tone of 
the letters — hollow, insincere, and full of courtly civilities 
•;o Dr. P., as a known friend of " the tolerance " (meaning, 
Df toleration) — certainly was not adapted to the English 
taste ; and in this respect was specially offensive to my 
mother, as always assuming of the doctor, that, by mere 
necessity, as being a philosopher, he must be an infidel. 
Dr. P. left that question, I believe, " in medio,'''' neither 
assenting nor denying ; and undoubtedly there was no par- 
ticular call upon him to publish his Confession of Faith 
before one who, in the midst of her rigorous politeness, 
suffered it to be too transparent that she did not like him. 
It is always a pity to see any thing lost and wasted, espe- 
cially love ; and, therefore, it was no subject for lamenta- 
tion, that too probably the philosophic doctor did not 
enthusiastically like her. But, if really so, that made no 
difference in his feelings towards my sister and myself. Us 
he did like ; and, as one proof of his regard, he presented us 
jointly whh such of his works as could be supposed inter- 
esting to two young literati, whose combined ages made no 
more at this period than a baker's dozen. These pres- 
entation copies amounted to two at the least, both octavoes, 
and one of them entitled The Father'^s — something or 
other ; what was it ? — Assistant, perhaps. How much 
assistance the doctor might furnish to the fathers upon this 
wicked little planet, I cannot say. But fathers are a stub- 
born race ; it is very little use trying to assist them. Better 



150 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

always to prescribe for the rising generation. And cer- 
tainly the impression which he made upon us — my sister 
and myself — by the story in question was deep and 
memorable : my sister wept over it, and wept over the 
remembrance of it ; and, not long after, carried its sweet 
aroma off with her to heaven ; whilst I, for my part, have 
never forgotten it. Yet, perhaps, it is injudicious to have 
too much excited the reader's expectations ; therefore, 
reader, understand what it is that you are invited to hear — 
not much of a story, but simply a noble sentiment, such as 
that of Louis XIT. when he refused, as King of France, to 
avenge his own injuries as Duke of Orleans — such as that 
of Hadrian, when he said that a Roman imperator ought 
to die standing, meaning that Caesar, as the man who rep- 
resented almighty Rome, should face the last enemy as the 
first in an attitude of unconquerable defiance. Here is Dr. 
Percival's story, which (again I warn you) will collapse 
into nothing at all, unless you yourself are able to dilate it 
by expansive sympathy with its sentiment. 

A young officer (in what army, no matter) had so far 
forgotten himself, in a moment of irritation, as to strike a 
private soldier, full of personal dignity, (as sometimes hap- 
pens in all ranks,) and distinguished for his courage. The 
inexorable laws of military discipline forbade to the injured 
soldier any practical redress — he could look for no retali- 
ation by acts. Words only were at his command ; and, in 
a tumult of indignation, as he turned away, the soldier said 
to his officer that he would " make him repent it." This, 
wearing the shape of a menace, naturally rekindled the 
officer's anger, and intercepted any disposition which might 
be rising within him towards a sentiment of remorse ; and 
thus the irritation between the two young men grew hotter 
than before. Some weeks after this a partial action took 
place with the enemy. Suppose yourself a spectator, and 



INFANT LITERATURE. 151 

looking down into a valley occupied by the two armies. 
They are facing each other, you see, in martial array. 
But it is no more than a skirmish which is going on ; in 
the course of which, however, an occasion suddenly arises 
for a desperate service. A redoubt, which has fallen into 
the enemy's hands, must be recaptured at any price, and 
under circumstances of all but hopeless difficulty. A strong 
party has volunteered for the service ; there is a cry for 
somebody to head them ; you see a soldier step out from 
the ranks to assume this dangerous leadership; the party 
moves rapidly forward ; in a few minutes it is swallowed up 
from your eyes in clouds of smoke ; for one half hour, 
from behind these clouds, you receive hieroglyphic reports 
of bloody strife — fierce repeating signals, flashes from the 
guns, rolling musketry, and exulting hurrahs advancing or 
receding, slackening or redoubling. At length all is over ; 
the redoubt has been recovered ; that which was lost is 
found again ; the jewel which had been made captive is 
ransomed with blood. Crimsoned with glorious gore, the 
wreck of the conquering party is relieved, and at liberty to 
return. From the river you see it ascending. The plume- 
crested officer in command rushes forward, with his left 
hand raising his hat in homage to the blackened fragments 
of what once was a flag, whilst, with his right hand, he 
seizes that of the leader, though no more than a private from 
the ranks. That perplexes you not ; mystery you see none 
in that. For distinctions of order perish, ranks are con- 
founded, " high and low " are words without a meaning, 
and to wreck goes every notion or feeling that divides the 
noble from the noble, or the brave man from the brave. But 
wherefore is it that now, when suddenly they wheel into 
mutual recognition, suddenly they pause ? This soldier, 
this officer — who are they ? O reader ! once before they 
had stood face to face — the soldier it is that was struck ; 



152 JiUTOBTOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

the officer it is that struck him. Once again they are 
meeting ; and the gaze of armies is upon them. If for a 
moment a doubt divides them, in a moment the doubt has 
perished. One glance exchanged between them publishes 
the forgiveness that is sealed forever. As one who recov- 
ers a brother whom he had accounted dead, the officer sprang 
forward, threw his arms around the neck of the soldier, 
and kissed him, as if he were some martyr glorified by 
that shadow of death from which he was returning ; whilst, 
on Im part, the soldier, stepping back, and carrying his 
open hand through the beautiful motions of the military 
salute to a superior, makes this immortal answer — that 
answer which shut up forever the memory of the indig- 
nity offered to him, even whilst for the last time alluding to 
it : " Sir," he said, " I told you before that I would make 
you repent it,^' 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE FEMALE INFIDEL. 

At the time of my father's death, I was nearly seven 
years old. In the next four years, during which we con- 
tinued to live at Greenhay, nothing memorable occurred, 
except, indeed, that troubled parenthesis in my life which 
connected me with my brother William, — this certainly 
was memorable to myself, — and, secondly, the visit of a 
most eccentric young woman, who, about nine years later, 
drew the eyes of all England upon hei'self by her unprin- 
cipled conduct in an affair affecting the life of two Oxonian 
undergraduates. She was the daughter of Lord Le De- 
spencer, (known previously as Sir Francis Dashwood ;) and 
at this time (meaning the time of her visit to Greenhay) 
she was about twenty-two years old, with a face and a 
figure classically beautiful, and with the reputation of ex- 
traordinary accomplishments ; these accomplishments being 
not only eminent in their degree, but rare and interesting in 
their kind. In particular, she astonished every person by her 
impromptu performances on the organ, and by her powers 
of disputation. These last she applied entirely to attacks 
upon Christianity ; for she openly professed infidelity in the 
most audacious form ; and at my mother's table she cer- 
tainly proved more than a match for all the clergymen of 

153 



154 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

the neighboring towns, some of whom (as the most intel- 
lectual persons of that neighborhood) were daily invited to 
meet her. It was a mere accident which had introduced 
her to my mother's house. Happening to hear from my 
sister Mary's governess * that she and her pupil were going 
on a visit to an old Catnolic family in the county of Dur- 
ham, (the family of Mr. Swinburne, who was known ad- 
vantageously to the public by his " Travels in Spain and 
Sicily," &;c.,) Mrs. Lee, whose education in a French con- 
vent, aided by her father's influence, had introduced her 
extensively to the knowledge of Catholic families in Eng- 



* "-My sister Mary^s governess^'' — This governess was a Miss 
Wesley, niece to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. And the 
mention of her recalls to me a fact, which was recently revived and 
misstated by the whole newspaper press of the island. It had been 
always known that some relationship existed between the Wellesleys 
and John Wesley. Their names had, in fact, been originally the 
same ; and the Duke of Wellington himself, in the earlier part of his 
career, when sitting in the Irish House of Commons, was always 
known to the Irish journals as Captain Wesley. Upon this arose a 
natural belief that the aristocratic branch of the house had improved 
the name into Wellesley. But the true process of change had been 
precisely the other way. Not Wesley had been expanded into 
Wellesley, but, inversely, Wellesley had been contracted by household 
usage into Wesley. The name must have been Wellesley in its earliest 
stage, since it was founded upon a connection with Wells CathedraL 
It had obeyed the same process as prevails in many hundreds of other 
names : St. Leger, for instance, is always pronounced as if written 
Sillinger ; Cholmondeley as Chumleigh ; Marjoribanks as March- 
banks ; and the illustrious name of Cavendish was for centuries fa- 
miliarly pronounced Candish ; and Wordsworth has even introduced 
this name into verse so as to compel the reader, by a metrical coer- 
cion, into calling it Candish. Miss Wesley's family had great musi- 
cal sensibility and skill. This led the family into giving musical 
parties, at which was constantly to be found Lord Mornington, the 
father of the Duke of Wellington. For these parties it was, as Miss 
Wesley informed me, that the earl composed his most celebrated glee. 



THE FEMALE INFIE^L. 155 

land, and who had herself an invitation to the same house 
at the same time, wrote to offer the use of her carriage to 
convey all three — i. e., herself, my sister, and her gov- 
erness — to Mr. Swinburne's. This naturally drew forth 
from my mother an invitation to Greenhay ; and to Green- 
hay she came. On the imperial of her carriage, and else- 
where, she described herself as the Ho7i. Antonina Dash- 
wood Lee. But, in fact, being only the illegitimate daughter 
of Lord Le Despencer, she was not entitled^o that designa- 
tion. She had, however, received a bequest even more en- 
viable from her father, viz., not less than forty-five thousand 
pounds. At a very early age, she had married a young 
Oxonian, distinguished for nothing but a very splendid per- 
son, which had procured him the distinguishing title of 
Handsome Lee; and from him she had speedily separated, 
on the agreement of dividing the fortune. 

My mother little guessed what sort of person it was 
whom she had asked into her family. So much, however, 
she had understood from Miss Wesley — that Mrs. Lee was 
a bold thinker ; and that, for a woman, she had an astonish- 
ing command of theological learning. This it was that 
suggested the clerical invitations, as in such a case likely to 
furnish the most appropriate society. But this led to a 
painful result. It might easily have happened that a very 

Here also it was, or in similar musical circles gathered about himself 
by the first Lord Mornington, that the Duke of Wellington had 
formed and cultivated his unaffected love for 4nusic of the highest 
class, i. e., for the impassioned music of the serious opera. And it 
occurs to me as highly probable, that Mrs. Lee's connection with the 
Wcsle3's, through which it was that she became acquainted with my 
mother, must have rested upon the common interest which she and 
the Wesleys had in the organ and in the class of music suited to that 
instrument. Mrs. Lee herself was an improvisatrice of the first class 
upon the organ ; and the two brothers of Miss Wesley, Samuel and 
Charles, ranked for very many years as the first organists in Europe. 



156 ArXOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

learned clergyman should not specially have qualified him- 
self for the service of a theological tournament ; and my 
mother's range of acquaintance was not very extensive 
amongst the clerical body. But of these the two leaders, 

as regarded public consideration, were Mr. H , my 

guard ian» and Mr. Clowes, who for more than fifty years 
officiated as rector of St. John's Church in Manchester. 
In fact, the golden * jubilee of his pastoral connection with 
St. John's was celebrated many years after with much 
demonstrative expression of public sympathy on the part 
of universal Manchester — the most important city in the 
island next after London. No men could have been found 
who were less fitted to act as champions in a duel on behalf 

of Christianity. Mr. H was dreadfully commonplace ; 

dull, dreadfully dull ; and, by the necessity of his nature, 
incapable of being in deadly earnest, which his splendid 
antagonist at all times was. His encounter, therefore, with 
Mrs. Lee presented the distressing spectacle of an old, 
toothless, mumbling mastifl?*, fighting for the household to 
which he owed allegiance against a young leopardess fresh 
from the forests. Every touch from Aer, every velvety pat, 
drew blood. And something comic mingled with what my 
mother felt to be paramount tragedy. Far different was 
Mr. Clowes : holy, visionary, apostolic, he could not be 
treated disrespectfully. No man could deny him a qualified 
homage. But for any polemic service he wanted the taste, 
the training, and the particular sort of erudition required. 
Neither would such advantages, if he had happened to 



* '■'■The golden juhiJeeP — This, in German}', is used popularly as a 
technical expression : a married couple, when celebrating the fiftieth 
anniversary of their marriage day, are said to keep their golden 
jubilee ; but on the twenty-fifth anniversary they have credit only for 
a silver jubilee. 



THE FEMALE INFIDEL. 157 

possess them, have at all availed him in a case like this. 
Horror, blank horror, seized him upon seeing a woman, a 
young woman, a woman of captivating beauty, whom God 
had adorned so eminently with gifts of person and of mind, 
breathing sentiments that to him seemed fresh from the 
mintage of hell. He could have apostrophized her (as 
long afterwards he himself told me) in the words of Shak- 
speare's Juliet — 

" Beautiful tyrant ! fiend angelical ! " 

for he was one of those who never think of Christianity as 
the subject of defence. Could sunshine, could light, could 
the glories of the dawn call for defence ? Not as a thing 
to be defended, but as a thing to be interpreted, as a thing 
to be illuminated, did Christianity exist for him. He, 
therefore, was even more unserviceable as a champion 
against the deliberate impeacher of Christian evidences 
than my reverend guardian. 

Thus it was that he himself explained his own position 
in after days, when I had reached my sixteenth year, and 
visited him upon terms of friendship as close as can ever 
have existed between a boy and a man already gray headed. 
Him and his noiseless parsonage, the pensive abode for sixty 
years of religious revery and anchoritish self-denial, I have 
described farther on. In some limited sense he belongs to 
our literature, for he was, in fact, the introducer of Swe- 
denborg to this country ; as being himself partially the 
translator of Swedenborg ; and still more as organizing a 
patronage to other people's translations ; and also, I believe, 
as republishing the original Latin works of Swedenborg. 
To say that of Mr. Clowes, was, until lately, but another 
way of describing him as a delirious dreamer. At present, 
(1853,) I presume the reader to be aware that Cam- 
bridge lias, within the last few years, unsettled and even 



158 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

revolutionized our estimates of Swedenborg as a philoso- 
plier. That man, indeed, whom Emerson ranks as one 
amongst his inner consistory of intellectual potentates 
cannot be the absolute trifler that Kant, (who knew him 
only by the most trivial of his pretensions,) eighty years 
ago, supposed him. Assuredly, Mr. Clowes was no trifler, 
but lived habitually a life of power, though in a world of 
religious mysticism and of apocalyptic visions. To him, 
being such a man by nature and by habit, it was in effect 
the lofty Lady Geraldine from Coleridge's " Christabel " 
that stood before him in this infidel lady. A magnificent 
witch she was, like the Lady Geraldine ; having the same 
superb beauty ; the same power of throwing spells over 
the ordinary gazer ; and yet at intervals unmasking to 
some solitary, unfascinated spectator the same dull blink 
of a snaky eye ; and revealing, through the most fugitive 
of gleams, a traitress couchant beneath what else to all 
others seemed the form of a lady, armed with incomparable 
pretensions — one that was 

" Beautiful exceedingly, 
Like a lady from a far countrie." 

The scene, as I heard it sketched long years afterwards 
by more than one of those who had witnessed it, was pain- 
ful in excess. And the shock given to my mother was 
memorable. For the first and the last time in hei* long 
and healthy life, she suffered an alarming nervous attack. 
Partly this arose from the conflict between herself in the 
character of hostess, and herself as a loyal daughter of 
Christian faith ; she shuddered, in a degree almost incon- 
trollable and beyond her power to dissemble, at the un- 
feminine intrepidity with which "the leopardess" con- 
ducted her assaults upon the sheepfolds of orthodoxy ; 
and partly, also, this internal conflict arose from concern 



THE FEMALE INFIDEL. 159 

on behalf of her own servants, who wailed at dinner, and 
were inevitably liable to impressions from what they 
heard. My mother, by original choice, and by early train- 
ing under a very aristocratic father, recoiled as austerely 
from all direct communication with her servants as the 
Pythia at Delphi from the attendants that swept out the 
temple. But not the less her conscience, in all stages of 
her life, having or not having any special knowledge of 
religion, acknowledged a pathetic weight of obligation to 
remove from her household all confessedly corrupting in- 
fluences. And here was one which s.ie could not remove. 
What chiefly she feared, on behalf of her servants, was 
either, 1st, the danger from the simple fact^ now suddenly 
made known to them, that it was possible for a person 
unusually gifted to deny Christianity ; such a denial and 
haughty abjuration could not but carry itself more pro- 
foundly into the reflective mind, even of servants, when 
the arrow came winged and made buoyant by the gay 
feathering of so many splendid accomplishments. This 
general fact was appreciable by those who would forget, 
and never could have understood, the particular arguments 
of the infidel. Yet, even as regarded these particular ar- 
guments, 2dly, my mother feared that some one — brief, 
telling, and rememberable — might be singled out from the 
rest, might transplant itself to the servants' hall, and take 
root for life in some mind sufficiently thoughtful to invest it 
with interest, and yet far removed from any opportunities, 
through books or society, for disarming the argument of 
its sting. Such a danger was quickened by the character 
and pretensions of Mrs. Lee's footman, who was a daily 
witness, whilst standing behind his mistress's chair at din- 
ner, to the confusion which she carried into the hostile 
camp, and might be supposed to renew such discussions in 
the servants' hall with singular advantages for a favorable 



160 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

attention. For he was a showy and most audacious Lon- 
doner, and what is technically known in the language of 
servants' hiring offices as " a man of figure." He might, 
therefore, be considered as one dangerously armed for 
shaking religious principles, especially amongst the female 
servants. Here, however, I believe that my mother was 
mistaken. Women of humble station, less than any other 
class, have any tendency to sympathize with boldness that 
manifests itself in throwing off the yoke of religion. Per- 
haps a natural instinct tells them that levity of that nature 
will pretty surely extend itself contagiously to other modes 
of conscientious obligation ; at any rate, my own experi- 
ence would warrant me in doubting whether any instance 
were ever known of a woman, in the rank of servant, re- 
garding infidelity or irreligion as something brilliant, or in- 
teresting, or in any way as favorably distinguishing a man. 
Meantime, this conscientious apprehension on account of 
the servants applied to contingencies that were remote. 
But the pity on account of the poor lady herself applied to 
a danger that seemed imminent and deadly. This beautiful 
and splendid young creature, as my mother knew, was 
floating, without anchor or knowledge of any anchoring 
grounds, upon the unfathomable ocean of a London world, 
which, for Aer, was wrapped in darkness as regarded its dan- 
gers, and thus for her the chances of shipwreck were seven 
times multiplied. It was notorious that Mrs. Lee had no 
protector or guide, natural or legal. Her marriage had, in 
fact, msiead of imposing new restraints, released her from 
old ones. For the legal separation of Doctors' Commons — 
technically called a divorce simply a mensd et thoro, (from 
bed and board,) and not a vinculo matrimonii (from the 
very tie and obligation of marriage) — had removed her by 
law from the control of her husband ; whilst, at the same 
time, the matrimonial condition, of course, enlarged that 



THE FEMALE INFIDEL. 161 

liberty of action which else is unavoidably narrowed by 
the reserve and delicacy natural to a young woman, whilst 
yet unmarried. Here arose one peril more ; and, 2dly, arose 
this most unusual aggravation of that peril — that Mrs Lee 
was deplorably ignorant of English life ; indeed, of life 
universally. Strictly speaking, she was even yet a raw, 
untutored novice, turned suddenly loose from the twilight of 
a monastic seclusion. Under any circumstances, such a 
situation lay open to an amount of danger that was afflict- 
ing to contemplate. But one dreadful exasperation of these 
fatal auguries lay in the peculiar temper of Mrs. Lee, as 
connected with her infidel thinking. Her nature was too 
frank and bold to tolerate any disguise ; and my mother's 
own experience had now taught her that Mrs, Lee would 
not be content to leave to the random call of accident the 
avowal of her principles. No passive or latent spirit of 
freethinking was hers — headlong it was, uncompromis- 
ing, almost fierce, and regarding no restraints of place 
or season. Like Shelley, some few years later, whose day 
she would have gloried to welcome, she looked upon her 
principles not only as conferring rights, but also as im- 
posing duties of active proselytism. From this feature in 
her character it was that my mother foresaw an instant 
evil, which she urged Miss Wesley to pi'ess earnestly on 
her attention, viz., the inevitable alienation of all her fe- 
male friends. In many parts of the continent (but too 
much we are all in the habit of calling by the wide name 
of "the continent," France, Germany, Switzerland, and 
Belgium) my mother was aware that the most flagrant 
proclamation of infidelity would not stand in the way of a 
woman's favorable reception into society. But in England, 
at that time, this was far otherwise. A display such as Mrs. 
Lee habitually forced upon people's attention would at 
once have the effect of banishing from her house all 
U 



162 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

women of respectability. She would be thrown upon the 
society of men — bold and reckless, such as either agreed 
with herself, or, being careless on the whole subject of re- 
ligion, pretended to do so. Her income, though diminished 
now by the partition with Mr. Lee, was still above a thousand 
per annum ; which, though trivial for any purpose of dis- 
play in a place so costly as London, was still important 
enough to gather round her unprincipled adventurers, some 
of whom might be noble enough to obey no attraction but 
that which lay in her marble beauty, in her Athenian grace 
and eloquence, and the wild, impassioned nature of her ac- 
complishments. By her acting, her dancing, her conversa- 
tion, her musical improvisations, she was qualified to at- 
tract the most intellectual men ; but baser attractions 
would exist for baser men ; and my mother urged Miss 
Wesley, as one whom Mrs. Lee admitted to her confidence, 
above all things to act upon her pride by forewarning her 
that such men, in the midst of lip homage to her charms, 
would be sure to betray its hollowness by declining to let 
their wives and daughters visit her. Plead what excuses 
they would, Mrs. Lee might rely upon it, that the true 
ground for this insulting absence of female visitors would 
be found to lie in her profession of infidelity. This aliena- 
tion of female society would, it was clear, be precipitated 
enormously by Mrs. Lee's frankness. A result that might 
by a dissembling policy have been delayed indefinitely, 
would now be hurried forward to an immediate crisis. 
And in this result went to wreck the very best part of Mrs. 
Lee's securities against ruin. 

It is scarcely necessary to say, that all the evil followed 
which had been predicted, and through the channels which 
had been predicted. Some time was required on so vast a 
stage as London to publish the facts of Mrs. Lee's free- 
thinking — that is, to publish it as a matter of systematic 



THE FEMALE INFIDEL. 163 

purpose. Many persons bad at first made a liberal allow- 
ance for ber, as tempted by some momentary impulse into 
opinions that she bad not sufficiently considered, and 
migbt forget as hastily as sbe bad adopted tbem. But no 
sooner was it made known as a settled fact, that sbe bad 
deliberately dedicated ber energies to tbe interests of an 
anti-Christian system, and tbat sbe bated Christianity, than 
tbe whole body of ber friends within the pale of social 
respectability fell away from ber, and forsook ber bouse. 
To them succeeded a clique of male visitors, some of whom 
were doubtfully respectable, and otbers (like Mr. Frend, 
memorable for bis expulsion from Cambridge on account 
of his public hostility to Trinitarianism) were distinguished 
by a tone of intemperate defiance to the spirit of English 
society. Thrown upon such a circle, and emancipated 
from all that temper of reserve which would have been im- 
pressed upon ber by habitual anxiety for the good opinion 
of virtuous and high-principled women, the poor lady was 
tempted into an elopement with two dissolute brothers ; for 
what ultimate purpose on either side, was never made 
clear to tbe public. Why a lady should elope from her 
own house, and tbe protection of her own servants, under 
whatever impulse, seemed generally unintelligible. But 
apparently it was precisely this protection from her own 
servants which presented itself to tbe brothers in tbe light 
of an obstacle to their objects. What these objects migbt 
ultimately be, I do not entirely know ; and I do not feel 
myself authorized, by any thing which of my own knowl- 
edge I know, to load either of them with mercenary im- 
putations. One of tbem (tbe younger) was, or fancied 
himself, in love with Mrs. Lee. It was impossible for him 
to marry her ; and possibly he may have fancied that in 
some rustic retirement, where the parties were unknown, 
it would be easier than in London to appease tbe lady's 



164 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

scruples in respect to the sole mode of connection which 
the law left open to them. The frailty of the will in Mrs. 
Lee was as manifest in this stage of the case as sub- 
sequently, when she allowed herself to be over-clamored 
by Mr. Lee and his friends into a capital prosecution of 
the brothers. After she had once allowed herself to be 
put into a post chaise, she was persuaded to believe (and 
such was her ignorance of English society, that possibly 
she did believe) herself through the rest of the journey 
liable at any moment to summary coercion in the case of 
attempting any resistance. The brothers and herself left 
London in the evening. Consequently, it was long after 
midnight when the party halted at a town in Gloucester- 
shire, two stages beyond Oxford. The younger gentleman 
then persuaded her, but (as she alleged) under the impres- 
sion on her part that resistance was unavailing, and that 
the injury to her reputation was by this time irreparable, to 
allow of his coming to her bed room. This was perhaps 
not entirely a fraudulent representation in Mrs. Lee. The 
whole circumstances of the case made it clear, that, with 
any decided opening for deliverance, she would have 
caught at it ; and probably would again, from wavering of 
mind, have dallied with the danger. 

Perhaps at this point, having already in this last para- 
graph shot ahead by some nine years of the period when 
she visited Greenhay, allowing myself this license in order 
to connect my mother's warning through Miss Wesley with 
the practical sequel of the case, it may be as well for me 
to pursue the arrears of the story down to its final incident. 
In 1804, at the Lent Assizes for the county of Oxford, she 

appeared as principal witness against two brothers, L 1 

G n, and L n G n, on a capital charge of hav- 
ing forcibly carried her off from her own house in London, 
and afterwards of having, at some place in Gloucestershire, 



THE FEMALE INFIDEL. 165 

by collusion with each other and by terror, enabled one of 
the brothers to offer the last violence to her person. The 
circumstantial accounts published at the time by the news- 
papers were of a nature to conciliate the public sympathy 
altogether to the prisoners; and the general belief accorded 
with what was, no doubt, the truth — that the lady had 
been driven into a false accusation by the overpowering 
remonstrances of her friends, joined, in this instance, by 
her husband, all of whom were willing to believe, or will- 
ing to have it believed by the public, that advantage had 
been taken of her little acquaintance with English usages. 
I was present at the trial. The court was opened at eight 
o'clock in the morning ; and such was the interest in the 
case, that a mob, composed chiefly of gownsmen, besieged 
the doors for some time before the moment of admission. 
On this occasion, by the way, I witnessed a remarkable 
illustration of the profound obedience which Englishmen 
under all circumstances pay to the law. The constables, 
for what reason I do not know, were very numerous and 
very violent. Such of us as happened to have gone in our 
academic dress had our caps smashed in two by the con- 
stables' staves ; loliy^ it might be difficult for the officers to 
say, as none of us were making any tumult, nor had any 
motive for doing so, unless by way of retaliation. Many 
of these constables were bargemen or petty tradesmen, who 
in their ex-official character had often been engaged in 
rows with undergraduates, and usually had had the worst 
of it. At present, in the service of the blindfold goddess, 
these equitable men were no doubt taking out their ven- 
geance for past favors. But, under all this wanton display 
of violence, the gownsmen practised the severest forbear- 
ance. The pressure from behind made it impossible to 
forbear pressing ahead ; crushed, you were obliged to 
crush ; but, beyond that, there was no movement or ges- 



166 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

ture on our part to give any colorable warrant to the bru- 
tality of the officers. For nearly a whole hour, I saw this 
expression of reverence to the law triumphant over all prov- 
ocations. It may be presumed, that, to prompt so much 
crowding, there must have been some commensurate inter- 
est. There was so, but that interest was not at all in Mrs. 
Lee. She was entirely unknown ; and even by reputation 
or rumor, from so vast a wilderness as London, neither her 
beauty nor her intellectual pretensions had travelled down 
to Oxford. Possibly, in each section of 300 men, there 
might be one individual whom accident had brought ac- 
quainted, as it had myself, with her extraordinary endow- 
ments. But the general and academic interest belonged 
exclusively to the accused. They were both Oxonians — 
one belonging to University College, and the other, per- 
haps, to Baliol ; and, as they had severally taken the de- 
gree of A. B., which implies a residence of at least three 
years, they were pretty extensively known. But, known 
or not known personally, in virtue of the esprit de corps, 
the accused parties would have benefited in any case by a 
general brotherly interest. Over and above which, there 
was in this case the interest attached to an almost unintelli- 
gible accusation. A charge of personal violence, under the 
roof of a respectable English posting house, occupied al- 
ways by a responsible master and mistress, and within call 
at every moment of numerous servants, — what could that 
mean? And, again, when it became understood that this 
violence was alleged to have realized itself under a delu- 
sion, under a preoccupation of the victim's mind, that re- 
sistance to it was hopeless, how, and under what profound 
ignorance of English society, had such a preoccupation 
been possible ? To the accused, and to the incomprehen- 
sible accusation, therefore, belonged the whole weight of 
the interest ; and it was a very secondary interest indeed 



THE FEMALE INFIDEL. 167 

and purely as a reflex interest from the main one, which 
awaited the prosecutress. And yet, though so little curios- 
ity " awaited " her, it happened of necessity that, within a 
few moments after her first coming forward in the witness 
box, she had created a separate one for herself— first, 
through her impressive appearance ; secondly, through the 
appalling coolness of her answers. The trial began, I 
think, about nine o'clock in the morning; and, as some 
time was spent on the examination of Mrs. Lee's servants, 
of postilions, hostlers, &c., in pursuing the traces of the af- 
fair from London to a place seventy miles north of Lon- 
don, it was probably, about eleven in the forenoon before 
the prosecutress was summoned. My heart throbbed a 
little as the court lulled suddenly into the deep stillness of 
expectation, when that summons was heard : " Rachael 
Frances Antonina Dashwood Lee " resounded through all 
the passages ; and immediately in an adjoining anteroom, 
through which she was led by her attorney, for the pur- 
pose of evading the mob that surrounded the public ap- 
preaches, we heard her advancing steps. Pitiable was the 
humiliation expressed by her carriage, as she entered the 
witness box. Pitiable was the change, the world of dis- 
tance, between this faltering and dejected accuser, and that 
wild leopardess that had once worked her pleasure amongst 
the sheepfolds of Christianity, and had cufl^ed my poor 
guardian so unrelentingly, right and left, front and rear, 
when he attempted the feeblest of defences. However, 
she was not long exposed to the searching gaze of the 
court and the trying embarrassments of her situation. A 
single question brought the whole investigation to a close 
Mrs. Lee had been sworn. After a few questions, she was 
suddenly asked by the counsel for the defence whether she 
believed in the Christian religion ? Her answer was brief 
and peremptory, without distinction or circumlocution- 



168 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES 

No. Or, perhaps, not in God ? Again she replied, No . 
and again her answer was prompt and sans phrase. Upon 
this the judge declared that he could not permit the trial to 
proceed. The jury had heard what the witness said : she 
only could give evidence upon the capital part of the 
chaj-ge ; and she had openly incapacitated herself before 
the whole court. The jury instantly acquitted the prison- 
ers. In the course of the day I left my name at Mrs. Lee's 
lodgings ; but her servant assured me that she was too 
much agitated to see any body till the evening. At the 
hour assigned I called again. It was dusk, and a mob had 
assembled. At the moment I came up to the door, a lady 
was issuing, muffled up, and in some measure disguised. 
It was Mrs. Lee. At the corner of an adjacent street a 
post chaise was drawn up. Towards this, under the pro- 
tection of the attorney who had managed her case, she 
made her way as eagerly as possible. Before she could 
reach it, hcvvever, she was detected; a savage howl was 
raised, and a rush made to seize her. Fortunately, a body 
of gownsmen formed round her, so as to secure her from 
personal assault : they put her rapidly into the carriage ; 
and then, joining the mob in their hootings, sent off the 
horses at a gallop. Such was the mode of her exit from 
Oxford. 

Subsequently to this painful collision with Mrs. Lee at 
the Oxford Assizes, I heard nothing of her for many years, 
excepting only this — that she was residing in the family 
of an English clergyman distinguished for his learning and 
piety. This account gave great pleasure to my mother — 
not only as implying some chance that Mrs. Lee might be 
finally reclaimed from her unhappy opinions, but also as a 
proof that, in submitting to a rustication so mortifying to a 
woman of her brilliant qualifications, she must have fallen 
under some influences more promising for her respectabil- 



THE FEMALE INFIDEL. 169 

ity and happiness than those which had surrounded her in 
London. Finally, we saw by the public journals that she 
had written and published a book. The title I forget ; but 
by its subject it was connected with political or social phi- 
losophy. And one eminent testimony to its merit I myself 
am able to allege, viz., Wordsworth's. Singular enough it 
seems, that he who read so very little of modern literature, 
in fact, next to nothing, should be the sole critic and re- 
porter whom I have happened to meet upon Mrs. Lee's 
work. But so it was : accident had thrown the book in his 
way during one of his annual visits to London, and a sec- 
ond time at Lowther Castle. He paid to Mrs. Lee a com- 
pliment which certainly he paid to no other of her contem- 
poraries, viz., that of reading her book very nearly to the 
.end ; and he spoke of it repeatedly as distinguished for vig- 
or and originality of thought. 



CHAPTER V. 

I AM INTEODUCED TO THE WARFARE OF A 
PUBLIC SCHOOL. 

Four years after my father's death, it began to be per- 
ceived that there was no purpose to be answered in any 
longer keeping up the costly establishment of Greenhay. 
A head gardener, besides laborers equal to at least two 
more, were required for the grounds and gardens. And 
no motive existed any longer for being near to a great 
trading town, so long after the commercial connection with 
it had ceased. Bath seemed, on all accounts, the natural 
station for a person in my mother's situation ; and thither, 
accordingly, she went. I, who had been placed under the 
tuition of one of my guardians, remained some time longer 
under his care. I was then transferred to Bath. During 
this interval the sale of the house and grounds took place 
It may illustrate the subject of guardianship^ and the or- 
dinary execution of its duties, to mention the result. The 
year was in itself a year of great depression, and every 
way unfavorable to such a transaction ; and the particular 
night for which the sale had been fixed turned out remark- 
ably wet ; yet no attempt wus made to postpone it, and it 
proceeded. Originally the house and grounds had cosl 

170 



WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL. 171 

about c£6000. I have heard that only one offer was made, 
viz., of =£2500. Be that as it may, for the sum of c£2500 
it was sold ; and I have been often assured that, by waiting 
a few years, four to six times that sum might have been 
obtained with ease. This is not improbable, as the house 
was then out in the country ; but since then the town of 
Manchester has gathered round it and enveloped it. Mean- 
time, my guardians were all men of honor and integrity ; 
but their hands were filled with their own affairs. One 
(my tutor) was a clergyman, rector of a church, and 
having his parish, his large family, and three pupils to 
attend. He was, besides, a very sedentary and indolent 
man — loving books, hating business. Another was a mer- 
chant. A third was a country magistrate, overladen with 
official business : him we rarely saw. Finally, the fourth 
was a banker in a distant county, having more knowledge 
of the world, more energy, and more practical wisdom 
than all the rest united, but too remote for interfering 
effectually. 

Reflecting upon the evils which befell me, and the gross 
mismanagement, under my guardians, of my small fortune, 
and that of my brothers and sisters, it has often occurred to 
me that so important an office, which, from the time of De- 
mosthenes, has been proverbially maladministered, ought 
to be put upon a new footing, plainly guarded by a few ob- 
vious provisions. As under the Roman laws, for a long 
period, the guardian should be made responsible in law, 
and should give security from the first for the due perform- 
ance of his duties. But, to give him a motive for doing 
this, of course he must be paid. With the new obligations 
and liabilities will commence commensurate emoluments. 
If a c^ild is made a ward in Chancery, its property is man- 
aged expensively, but always advantageously. Some great 
change is imperatively called for — no duty in the whole 



172 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES 

compass of human life being so scandalously treated as 
this. 

In my twelfth year it was that first of all I entered upon 
the arena of a great public school, viz., the Grammar 
School * of Bath, over which at that time presided a most 
accomplished Etonian — Mr. (or was he as yet Doctor?) 
Morgan. If he was not, I am sure he ought to have been ; 
and, with the reader's concurrence, will therefore create 
him a doctor on the spot. Every man has reason to 

* " Grammar SchooV^ — By the way, as the grammar schools of 
England are amongst her most eminent distinctions, and, with sub- 
mission to the innumerable wretches (gentlemen I should say) that 
hate England " worse than toad or asp," have never been rivalled by 
any corresponding institutions in other lands, I may as well take this 
opportunity of explaining the word grammar, which most people mis- 
apprehend. Men suppose a grammar school to mean a school where 
they teach gi-ammar. But this is not the true meaning, and tends to 
calumniate such schools by ignoring their highest functions. Limit- 
ing by a false limitation the earliest object contemplated by such 
schools, they obtain a plausible pretext for representing all beyond 
grammar as something extraneous and casual that did not enter into 
the original or normal conception of the founders, and that may 
therefore have been due to alien suggestion. But now, when Sueto- 
nius writes a little book, bearing this title, " De Illustribus Gramma- 
ticis," what does he mean ? What is it that he promises 1 A memoir 
upon the eminent grammarians of Rome ? Not at all, but a memoir 
upon the distinguished literati of Rome. Grammatica does certainly 
mean sometimes grammar ; but it is also the best Latin word for liter- 
ature. A grammaticus is what the French express by the word litte- 
rateur. We unfortunately have no corresponding term in English : 
a man of letters is our awkward periphrasis in the singular, (too apt, 
as our jest books remind us, to suggest the postman :) whilst in the 
plural we resort to the Latin word literati. The school which pro- 
fesses to teach grammatica^ professes, therefore, the culture of litera- 
ture in the widest and most liberal extent, and is opposed generically 
to schools for teaching mechanic arts ; and, within its own sub-genus 
of schools dedicated to liberal objects, is opposed to schools for teaching 
mathematics, or, more widely, to schools for teaching science. 



WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL. 173 

rejoice who enjoys the advantage of a public training. I 
condemned, and do condemn, the practice of sending out 
into such stormy exposures those who are as yet too young, 
too dependent on female gentleness, and endowed with sen- 
sibilities originally too exquisite for such a warfare. But 
at nine or ten the masculine energies of the character are 
beginning to develop themselves ; or, if not, no discipline 
will better aid in their development than the bracing inter- 
course of a great English classical school. Even the self- 
ish are there forced into accommodating themselves to a 
public standard of generosity, and the efleminate in con- 
forming to a rule of manliness. I was myself at two pub- 
lic schools, and I think with gratitude of the benefits which 
I reaped from both ; as also I think with gratitude of that 
guardian in whose quiet household I learned Latin so effect- 
ually. But the small private schools, of which I had op- 
portunities for gathering some brief experience, — schools 
containing thirty to forty boys, — were models of ignoble 
manners as regarded part of the juniors, and of favoritism 
as regarded the masters. Nowhere is the sublimity of pub- 
lic justice so broadly exemplified as in an English public 
school on the old Edward the Sixth or Elizabeth foundation. 
There is not in the universe such an Areopagus for fair 
play, and abhorrence of all crooked ways, as an English 
mob, or one of the time-honored English " foundation " 
schools. But my own first introduction to such an estab- 
lishment was under peculiar and contradictory cu'cum- 
stances. When my " rating," or graduation in the school, was 
to be settled, naturally my altitude (to speak astronomical- 
ly) was taken by my proficiency in Greek. But here I 
had no advantage over others of my age. My guardian 
was a feeble Grecian, and had not excited my ambition ; 
so that I could barely construe tooks as easy as the Greek 
Testament and the Iliad. This was considered quite well 



174 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

enough for my age ; but still it caused me to be placed under 
the care of Mr. VVilkins, the second master out of four, and 
not under Dr. Morgan himself. Within one month, how- 
ever, my talent for Latin verses, which had by this time 
gathered strength and expansion, became known. Sud- 
denly I was honored as never was man or boy since Mor- 
decai the Jew. Without any colorable relation to the doc- 
tor's jurisdiction, I was now weekly paraded for distinction 
at the supreme tribunal of the school ; out of which, at 
first, grew nothing but a sunshine of approbation delightful 
to my heart. Within six weeks all this had changed. The 
approbation indeed continued, and the public expression of 
it. Neither would there, in the ordinary course, have been 
any painful reaction from jealousy, or fretful resistance, to 
the soundness of my pretensions ; since it was sufficiently 
known to such of my school-fellows as stood on my own 
level in the school, that I, who had no male relatives but 
military men, and those in India, could not have benefited 
by any clandestine aid. But, unhappily, Dr. Morgan was 
at that time dissatisfied with some points in the progress of 
his head class ; * and, as it soon appeared, was continually 
throwing in their teeth the brilliancy of my verses at 
eleven or twelve, by comparison with theirs at seventeen, 
eighteen, and even nineteen. I had observed him some- 
times pointing to myself, and was perplexed at seeing this 
gesture followed by gloomy looks, and what French report- 
ers call " sensation," in these young men, whom naturally 
I viewed with awe as my teaders — boys that were called 
young men, men that were reading Sophocles, (a name that 
carried with it the sound of something seraphic to my 
ears,) and who had never vouchsafed to waste a word on 

* " Class" or ^'■form." — One knows not how to make one's self 
intelligible, so different are the terms locally. 



WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL. 175 

such a child as myself. The day was come, however, 
when all that would be changed. One of these leaders 
strode up to me in the public playground, and, delivering 
a blow on my shoulder, which was not intended to hurt me 
but as a mere formula of introduction, asked me " what 
the devil I meant by bolting out of the course, and annoy- 
ing other people in that manner. Were * other people ' to 
have no rest for me and my verses, which, after all, were 
horribly bad ? " There might have been some difficulty 
in returning an answer to this address, but none was re- 
quired. I was briefly admonished to see that I wrote worse 

for the future, or else . At this aposiopesis I looked 

inquiringly at the speaker, and he filled up the chasm by 
saying that he would " annihilate " me. Could any per- 
son fail to be aghast at such a demand ? I was to write 
worse than my' own standard, which, by his account of my 
verses, must be difficult ; and I was to write worse than 
himself, which might be impossible. My feelings revolted 
against so arrogant a demand, unless it had been far other- 
wise expressed ; if death on the spot had awaited me, I 
could not have controlled myself ; and on the next occa- 
sion for sending up verses to the head master, so far from 
attending to the orders issued, I double-shotted my guns ; 
double applause descended on myself; but I remarked 
with some awe, though not repenting of what I had done, 
that double confusion seemed to agitate the ranks of my 
enemies. Amongst them loomed out in the distance my 
" annihilating " friend, who shook his huge fist at me, but 
with something like a grim smile about his eyes. He took 
an early opportunity of paying his respects to me again, 
saying, "You little devil, do you call this writing your 
worst.?" "No," I replied ; "I call it writing my best." 
The annihilator, as it turned out, was really a good-natured 
young man ; but he was on the wing for Cambridge ; and 



176 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

with the rest, or some of them, I continued to wage war for 
more than a year. And yet, for a word spoken with kind- 
ness, how readily I would have resigned (had it been alto- 
gether at my own choice to do so) the peacock's feather in 
my cap as the merest of bawbles. Undoubtedly, praise 
sounded sweet in my ears also ; but that was nothing by 
comparison with what stood on the other side. I detested 
distinctions that were connected with mortification to others ; 
and, even if I could have got over that^ the eternal feud 
fretted and tormented my nature. Love, that once in child- 
hood had been so mere a necessity to me, that had long 
been a reflected ray from a departed sunset. But peace, 
and freedom from strife, if love were no longer possible, 
(as so rarely it is in this world,) was the clamorous' neces- 
sity of my nature. To contend with somebody was still 
my fate ; how to escape the contention I could not see ; 
and yet, for itself, and for the deadly passions into which it 
forced me, I hated and loathed it more than death. It add- 
ed to the distraction and internal feud of my mind, that I 
could not altogether condemn the upper boys. I was made 
a handle of humiliation to them. And, in the mean time, 
if I had an undeniable advantage in one solitary accom- 
plishment, which is all a matter of accident, or sometimes 
of peculiar direction given to the taste, they, on the other 
hand, had a great advantage over me in the more elaborate 
difficulties of Greek and of choral Greek poetry. I could 
not altogether wonder at their hatred of myself. Yet still, 
as they had chosen to adopt this mode of conflict with me, 
I did not feel that I had any choice but to resist. The con- 
test was terminated for me by my removal from the school, 
in consequence of a very threatening illness affecting my 
head ; but it lasted more than a year, and it did not close 
before several among my public enemies had become my 
nrivate friends. They were much older, but they invited 



WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL. 177 

me to the houses of their friends, and showed me a respect 
which affected me — this respect having more reference 
apparently, to the firmness I had exhibited, than to any 
splendor in my verses. And, indeed, these had rather 
drooped from a natural accident ; several persons of my 
own class had formed the practice of asking me to write 
verses for them. I could not refuse. But, as the subjects 
given out were the same for the entire class, it was not pos- 
sible to take so many crops off the ground without starving 
the quality of all. 

The most interesting public event which, during my stay 
at this school, at all connected itself with Bath, and indeed 
with the school itself, was the sudden escape of Sir Sidney 
Smith from the prison of the Temple in Paris. The mode 
of his escape was as striking as its time was critical. Hav- 
ing accidently thrown a ball beyond the prison bounds in 
playing at tennis, or some such game. Sir Sidney was sur- 
prised to observe that the ball thrown back was not the 
same. Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to dis- 
semble his sudden surprise. He retired, examined the 
ball, found it stuffed with letters ; and, in the same way, he 
subsequently conducted a long correspondence, and ar- 
ranged the whole circumstances of his escape ; which, re- 
markably enough, was accomplished exactly eight days 
before the sailing of Napoleon with the Egyptian expedi- 
tion ; so that Sir Sidney was just in time to confront, and 
utterly to defeat. Napoleon in the breach of Acre. But 
for Sir Sidney, Bonaparte would have overrun Syria, that 
is certain. What would have followed from that event is 
a far more obscure problem. 

Sir Sidney Smith, I must explain to readers of this gen- 
eration, and Sir Edward Pellew, (afterwards Lord Ex- 
mouth,) figured as the two * Paladins of the first war with 

* To them in the next stage of the war succeeded Sir Michael 
12 



178 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

revolutionary France. Rarely were these two names men- 
tioned but in connection with some splendid, prosperous, 
and unequal contest. Hence the whole nation was sad- 
dened by the account of Sir Sidney's capture ; and this 
must be understood, in order to make the joy of his sudden 
return perfectly intelligible. Not even a rumor of Sir 
Sidney's escape had or could have run before him ; for, at 
the moment of reaching the coast of England, he had 
started 'with post horses to Bath. It was about dusk when 
he arrived : the postilions were directed to the square in 
which his mother lived : in a few minutes he was in his 
mother's arms, and in fifty minutes more the news had 
flown to the remotest suburb of the city. The agitation of 
Bath on this occasion was indescribable. All the troops 
of the line then quartered in that city, and a whole regi- 
ment of volunteers, immediately got under arms, and 
marched to the quarter in which Sir Sidney lived. The 
small square overflowed with the soldiery ; Sir Sidney 
went out, and was immediately lost to us, who were watch- 
ing for him, in the closing ranks of the troops. Next 
morning, however, I, my younger brother, and a school- 
fellow of my own age, called formally upon the naval hero. 
Why, I know not, unless as alumni of the school at which 
Sir Sidney Smith had received his own education, we were 
admitted without question or demur ; and I may record it 
as an amiable trait in Sir Sidney, that he received us then 
with great kindness, and took us down with him to the 
pump room. Considering, however, that we must have 

Seymour, and Lord Cochrane, (the present Earl of Dundonald,) and 
Lord Camelford. The two last were the regular fireeaters of the 
day. Sir Horatio Nelson being already an admiral, was no longer 
looked to for insulated exploits of brilliant adventure : his name was 
now conne( ted with larger and combined attacks, less dashing and ad- 
venturous, because including heavier responsibilities. 



WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL. 179 

been most afflicting bores to Sir Sidney, — a fact which no 
self-esteem could even then disguise from us, — it puzzled 
me at first to understand the principle of his conduct. 
Having already done more than enough in courteous ac- 
knowledgment of our fraternal claims as fellow-students 
at the Bath Grammar School, why should he think it ne- 
cessary to burden himself further with our worshipful 
society ? I found out the secret, and will explain it. A 
very slight attention to Sir Sidney's deportment in public 
revealed to me that he was morbidly afflicted with nervous 
sensibility and with mauvaise honte. He that had faced so 
cheerfully crowds of hostile and threatening eyes, could 
not support without trepidation those gentle eyes, beaming 
with gracious admiration, of his fair young countrywomen. 
By accident, at that moment Sir Sidney had no acquaint 
ances in Bath,* a fact which is not at all to be wondered 
at. Living so much abroad and at sea, an English sailor, 
of whatever rank, has few opportunities for making friends 
at home. And yet there was a necessity that Sir Sidney 
should gratify the public interest, so warmly expressed, by 
presenting himself somewhere or other to the public eye. 
But how trying a service to the most practised and other- 
wise most callous veteran on such an occasion, that he 
should step forward, saying in effect, " So you are want- 
ing to see me: well, then, here I am: come and look at 
me ! " Put it into what language you please, such a sum- 
mons was written on all faces, and countersigned by his 
worship the mayor, who began to whisper insinuations of 
riots if Sir Sidney did not comply. Yet, if he did, inevi- 
tably his own act of obedience to the public pleasure took 
the shape ^f an ostentatious self-parading under the con- 

=* Lord Camelford was, I believe, his first cousin ; Sir Sidney's 
mother and Lady Camelford being sisters. But Lord Camelford was 
then absent from Bath. 



180 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

struction of those numerous persons who knew nothing cf 
the public importunity, or of Sir Sidney's unaffected and 
even morbid reluctance to obtrude himself upon the public 
eye. The thing was unavoidable; and the sole palliation 
that it admitted was — to break the concentration of the 
public gaze, by associating Sir Sidney with some alien 
group, no matter of what cattle. Such a group would 
relieve both parties — gazer and gazee — from too dis- 
tressing a consciousness of the little business on which they 
had met. We, the schoolboys, being three, intercepted' and 
absorbed part of the enemy's fire, and, by furnishing Sir 
Sidney with real bona Jide matter of conversation, we re- 
leased him from the most distressing part of his suffer- 
ings, viz., the passive and silent acquiescence in his own 
apotheosis — holding a lighted candle, as it were, to the 
glorification of his own shrine. With our help, he weathered 
the storm of homage silently ascending. And we, in fact, 
whilst seeming to ourselves too undeniably a triad of bores, 
turned out the most serviceable allies that Sir Sidney ever 
had by land or sea, until several moons later, when he 
formed the invaluable acquaintance of the Syrian " butch- 
er," viz., Djezzar, the Pacha of Acre. I record this little trait 
of Sir Sidney's constitutional temperament, and the little 
service through which I and my two comrades contributed 
materially to his relief, as an illustration of that infirmity 
which besieges the nervous system of our nation. It is a 
sensitiveness which sometimes amounts to lunacy, and 
sometimes even tempts to suicide. It is a mistake, how- 
ever, to suppose this morbid affection unknown to French- 
men, or unknown to men of the world. I have myself 
known it to exist in both, and particularly in a man that 
might be said to live in the street, such was the American 
publicity which circumstances threw around his life ; and 
so far were his habits of life removea from reserve, or 



WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL. 181 

from any ^predisposition to gloom. And at this moment I 
recall a remarkable illustration of what I am saying, com- 
municated by Wordsworth's accomplished friend, Sir George 
Beaumont. To him I had been sketching the distressing 
sensitiveness of Sir Sidney pretty much as I have sketched 
it to the reader ; and how he, the man that on the breach 
at Acre valued not the eye of Jew, Christian, or Turk, 
shrank back — me ipso teste — from the gentle, though 
eager — from the admiring, yet affectionate — glances of 
three very young ladies in Gay Street, Bath, the oldest (1 
should say) not more than seventeen. Upon which Sir 
George mentioned, as a parallel experience of his own, 
that Mr. Canning, being ceremoniously introduced to him- 
self (Sir George) about the time when he had reached the 
meridian of his fame as an orator, and should therefore 
liave become hlase to the extremity of being absolutely 
seared and case-hardened against all impressions whatever 
appealing to his vanity or egotism, did absolutely (credite 
posteri !) blush like any roseate girl of fifteen. And that 
this was no accident growing out of a niomentary agitation, 
no sudden spasmodic pang, anomalous and transitory, ap- 
peared from other concurrent anecdotes of Canning, re- 
ported by gentlemen from Liverpool, who described to us 
most graphically and picturesquely the wayward fitfulness 
(not coquettish, or wilful, but nervously overmastering and 
most unaffectedly distressing) which besieged this great ar- 
tist in oratory, as the time approached — was coming — 
was going, at which the private signal should have been 
shown for proposing his health. Mr. P. (who had been, I 
think, the mayor on the particular occasion indicated) de- 
scribed the restlessness of his manner ; how he rose, and 
retired for half a minute into a little parlor behind the 
chairman's seat ; then came back ; then whispered, Not 
yet^ I beseech you ; I cannot face them yet ; then sipped a 



182 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

little water, then moved uneasily on his chair, saying, One 
moment, if you please : stop, stop : clonH hurry : one mo- 
ment, and I shall he up to the mark : in short, fighting with 
the necessity of taking the final plunge, like one who lin- 
gers on the scaffold. 

Sir Sidney was at that time slender and thin ; having an 
appearance of emaciation, as though he had suffered hard- 
ships and ill treatment, which, however, I do not remember 
to have heard. Meantime, his appearance, connected with 
his recent history, made him a very interesting person to 
women ; and to this hour it remains a mystery with me, 
why and how it came about, that in every distribution of 
honors Sir Sidney Smith was overlooked. In the Mediter- 
ranean he made many enemies, especially amongst those 
of his own profession, who used to speak of him as far too 
fine a gentleman, and above his calling. Certain it is that 
he liked better to be doing business on shore, as at Acre, 
although he commanded a fine 80 gun ship, the Tiger. 
But however that may have been, his services, whether 
classed as military or naval, were memorably splendid. 
And, at that time, his connection, of whatsoever nature, 
with the late Queen Caroline had not occurred. So that 
altogether, to me, his case is inexplicable. 

From the Bath Grammar School I was removed, in con- 
sequence of an accident, by which at first it was supposed 
that my skull had been fractured ; and the surgeon who at- 
tended me at one time talked of trepanning. This was an 
awful word ; but at present I doubt whether in reality any 
thing very serious had happened. In fact, I was always 
under a nervous panic for my head, and certainly exag- 
gerated my internal feelings without meaning to do so; 
and this misled the medical attendants. During a long 
illness which succeeded, my mother, amongst other books 
past all counting, read to me, in Hoole's translation, the 



WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL. 183 

whole of the " Orlando Furioso ; " meaning by the whole 
the entire twenty-four books into which Hoole had con- 
densed the original forty-six of Ariosto ; and, from my own 
experience at that time, I am disposed to think that the 
homeliness of this version is an advantage, from not calling 
off the attention at all from the narration to the narrator. 
At this time also I first read the " Paradise Lost ; " but, 
oddly enough, in the edition of Bentley, that great naQa- 
diogdixjTTjg^ (or pseudo-restorer of the text.) At the close of 
my illness, the head master called upon my mother, in 
company with his son-in-law, Mr. Wilkins, as did a certain 
Irish Colonel Bowes, who had sons at the school, request- 
ing earnestly, in terms most flattering to myself, that I 
might be sufliered to remain there. But it illustrates my 
mother's moral austerity, that she was shocked at my hear- 
ing compliments to my own merits, and was altogether dis- 
turbed at what doubtless these gentlemen expected to see 
received with maternal pride. She declined to let me con- 
tinue at the Bath School ; and I went to another, at Wink- 
field, in the county of Wilts, of which the chief recommen- 
dation lay in the religious character of the master. 



CHAPTER VI. 
I ENTER THE WORLD. 

Yes, at this stage of my life, viz., in my fifteenth year 
and from this sequestered school, ankle deep I first stepped 
into the world. At Winkfield I had staid about a year, or 
not much more, when I received a letter from a young 
friend of my own age. Lord Westport,* the son of Lord 
Altamont, inviting me to accompany him to Ireland for the 
ensuing summer and autumn. This invitation was repeat- 
ed hy his tutor ; and my mother, after some consideration, 
allowed me to accept it. 

In the spj;ing of 1800, accordingly, I went up to Eton, 
for the purpose of joining my friend. Here I several times 
visited the gardens of the queen's villa at Frogmore ; and, 
privileged by my young friend's introduction, I had oppor- 
tunities of seeing and hearing the queen and all the prin- 
cesses ; which at that time was a novelty in my life, natu- 
rally a good deal prized. Lord Westport's mother had 
been, before her marriage, Lady Louisa Howe, daughter to 
the great admiral. Earl Howe, and intimately known to the 

* My acquaintance with Lord "Westport was of some years' stand- 
ing. My father, whose commercial interests led him often to Ireland 
had many friends there. One of tliesewas a comitry gentleman con- 
nected with the west ; and at his house I first met Lord Westport. 

184 



I ENTER THE WORLD. 185 

royal family, who, on her account, took a continual and 
especial notice of her son. 

On one of these occasions I had the honor of a brief in- 
terview with the king. Madame De Campan mentions, as 
an amusing incident in her early life, though terrific at the 
time, and overwhelming to her sense of shame, that not 
long after her establishment at Versailles, in the service of 
some one amongst the daughters of Louis XV., having as 
yet never seen the king, she was one day suddenly intro- 
duced to his particular notice, under the following circum- 
stances : The time was morning ; the young lady was not 
fifteen ; her spirits were as the spirits of a fawn in May ; 
her tour of duty for the day was either not come, or was 
gone ; and, finding herself alone in a spacious room, what 
more reasonable thing could she do than amuse herself 
with making cheeses? that is, whirling round, according to 
a fashion practised by young ladies both fn France and 
England, and pirouetting until the petticoat is inflated like 
a balloon, and then sinking into a courtesy. Mademoiselle 
was very solemnly rising from one of these courtesies, in 
the centre of her collapsing petticoats, when a slight noise 
alarmed her. Jealous of intruding eyes, yet not dreading 
more than a servant at worst, she turned, and, O Heavens! 
whom should she behold but his most Christian majesty 
advancing upon her, with a brilliant suite of gentlemen, 
young and old, equipped for the chase, who had been all 
silent spectators of her performances ? From the king to 
the last of the train, all bowed to her, and all laughed with- 
out restraint, as they passed the abashed amateur of cheese 
making. But she, to speak Homerically, wished in that 
hour that the earth might gape and cover her confusion. 
Lord Westport and I were about the age of mademoiselle, 
and not much more decorously engaged, when a turn 
brought us full in view of a royal party coming along one 



186 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

of the walks at Frogmore. We were, in fact, theorizing 
and practically commenting on the art of throwing stones. 
Boys have a peculiar conterfipt for female attempts in that 
way. For, besides that girls fling wide of the mark, with a 
certainty that might have won the applause of Galerius,* 
there is a peculiar sling and rotary motion of the arm in 
launching a stone, which no girl ever can attain. From 
ancient practice, I was somewhat of a proficient in this art, 
and was discussing the philosophy of female failures, illus- 
trating my doctrines with pebbles, as the case happened to 
demand ; whilst Lord Westport was practising on the pecu- 
liar whirl of the wrist with a shilling ; when suddenly he 
turned the head of the coin towards me with a significant 
glance, and in a low voice he muttered some words, of 
which I caught " Grace of God,'''' " France t and Ireland,'''' 

* " Sir," said^hat emperor to a soldier who had missed the target 
in succession I know not how many times, (suppose we say fifteen,) 
' allow me to offer my congratulations on the truly admirable 
skill you have shown in keeping clear of the mark. Not to have hit 
once in so many trials, argues the most splendid talents for missing." 

t France was at that time among the royal titles, the act for alter- 
ing the king's style and title not having then passed. As connected 
with this subject, I may here mention a project (reported to have been 
canvassed in council at the time when that alteration did take place) 
for changing the title from king to emperor. What then occurred 
strikingly illustrates the general character of the British policy as to 
all external demonstrations of pomp and national pretension, and its 
strong opposition to that of France under corresponding circum- 
stances. The principle of esse qiiam videri, and the carelessness about 
names when the thing is unaffected, generally speaking, must com- 
mand praise and respect. Yet, considering how often the reputation 
of power becomes, for international purposes, nothing less than pow- 
er itself, and that words, in many relations of human life, are em- 
phatically things, and sometimes are so to the exclusion of the most 
absolute things themselves, men of all qualities being often governed 
by names, the policy of France seems the wiser, viz., se /aire valoir 
even at the price of ostentation. But, at all events, no man is enti 



I ENTER THE WORLD. 187 

'''Defender of the FlWi^ and soforthy This solemn reci- 
tation of the legend on the coin was meant as a fanciful 
way of apprising me that the king was approaching; for 
Lord W. had himself lost somewhat of the awe natural to 

tied to exercise that extreme candor, forbearance, and spirit of ready- 
concession in re aliena, and, above all, in re polilica, which, on his own 
account, might be altogether honorable. The council might give 
away their own honors, but not yours and mine. On a public (or at 
least on a foreign) interest, it is the duty of a good citizen to be lofty, 
exacting, almost insolent. And, on this principle, when the ancient 
style and title of the kingdom fell under revision, if — as I do not 
deny — it was advisable to retrench all obsolete pretensions as so 
many memorials of a greatness that in that particular manifestation 
was now extinct, and therefore, pro tanto, rather presumptions of 
weakness than of strength, as being mementoes of our losses, yet, on 
the other hand, all countervailing claims which had since arisen, and 
had far more than equiponderated the declension in that one direction, 
should have been then adopted into the titular heraldry of the nation. 
It was neither wise nor just to insult foreign nations with assump- 
tions which no longer stood upon any basis of reality. And on that 
ground France was, perhaps, rightly omitted. But why, when the 
crown was thus remoulded, and its jewelry unset, if this one pearl 
^were to be surrendered as an ornament no longer ours, why, we may 
ask, were not the many and gorgeous jewels, achieved by the national 
wisdom and power in later times, adopted into the recomposed tiara ? 
Upon what principle did the Romans, the wisest among the children 
of this world, leave so many inscriptions, as records of their power or 
their triumphs, upon columns, arches, temples, basilica, or medals ? 
A national act, a solemn and deliberate act, delivered to history, is a 
more imperishable monument than any made by hands ; and the 
title, as revised, which ought to have expressed a change in the do- 
minion simply as to the mode and form of its expansion, now re- 
mains as a false, base, abject confession of absolute contraction : once 
we had A, B, and C ; now we have dwindled into A and B : true, 
most unfaithful guardian of the national honors, we had lost C, and 
that you were careful to remember. But we happened to have gained. 
D, E, r, — and so downwards to Z, — all of which duly you forgot. 

On this argument, it was urged at the time, in high quarters, that 
the new re-cast of the crown and sceptre should come out of tho 



188 AUTOBIOGEAPHIC SKETCHES. 

a young person in a first situation of this nature, through 
his frequent admissions to the royal presence. For my 
own part, I was as yet a stranger even to the king's person. 
I had, indeed, seen most or all the princesses in the way I 

furnace equally improved ; as much for what they were authorized to 
claim as for what they were compelled to disclaim. And, as one 
mode of effecting this, it was proposed that the king should become 
an emperor. Some, indeed, alleged that an emperor, by its very idea, 
as received in the Chancery of Europe, presupposes a king para- 
mount over vassal or tributary kings. But it is a suflficient answer to 
say that an emperor is a prince, uniting in his own person the thrones 
of several distinct kingdoms ; and in effect we adopt that view of the 
case in giving the title of imperial to the parliament, or common as 
sembly of the three kingdoms. However, the title of the prince was 
a matter trivial in comparison of the title of his ditio^ or extent of 
jurisdiction. This point admits of a striking illustration : in the 
"Paradise Regained," Milton has given us, in close succession, three 
matchless pictures of civil grandeur, as exemplified in three different 
modes by three different states. Availing himself of the brief scriptural 
notice, — " The devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, 
and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them," 
— he causes to pass, as in a solemn pageant before us, the two milita- 
ry empires tlien coexisting, of Parthia and Rome, and finally ( under^ 
another idea of political greatness) the intellectual glories of Athens. 
From the picture of the Roman grandeur I extract, and beg the 
reader to weigh, the following lines : — 

" Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see — at 
What conflux issuing forth or entering in ; 
Pretors, proconsuls, to their provinces 
Hasting, or on return in robes of state ; 
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power ; 
Legions or cohorts, turms of horse and wings ; 
Or embassies from regions far remote, 
In various habits on the Appian road, 
Or on the Emilian ; some from fixrthest south^ 
Sycne, and where the shadow both way falls, 
Meroe, Nilotic isle : and, more to west. 
The realm of Bocchus to the Blackraoor Sea , 
From India and the Golden Chersonese, 



1 ENTER THE WORLD. l89 

have mentioned above ; and occasionally, in the streets of 
Windsor, the sudden disappearance of all hats from all 
heads had admonished me that some royal personage or 
other was then traversing (or, if not traversing, was cross- 

And iitmost Indian isle, Taprobane, 
— Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed ; 
From Gallia, Gades, and the British, west, 
Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, north, 
Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool." 

With this superb picture, or abstraction of the Roman pomps and 
power, when ascending to their utmost altitude, confront the follow- 
ing representative sketch of a great English levee on some high so- 
lemnity, suppose the king's birthday : " Amongst the presentations 
to his majesty, we noticed Lord O. S., the governor general of In- 
dia, on his departure for Bengal ; Mr. U. Z., with an address from the 
Upper and Lower Canadas ; Sir L. V., on his appointment as com- 
mander of the forces in Nova Scotia ; General Sir , on his re- 
turn from the Bui-mese war, f" the Golden Chersonese,"] the com- 
mander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet ; Mr. B. Z., on his ap- 
pointment to the chief justiceship at Madras ; Sir R. G., the late 
attorney general at the Cape of Good Hope ; General Y. X., on 
taking leave for the governorship of Ceylon, [" the utmost Indian 
isle, Taprobane ; "] Lord F. M., the bearer of the last despatches 
from head quarters in Spain ; Col. P., on going out as captain gen- 
eral of the forces in New Holland ; Commodore St. L., on his return 
from a voyage of discovery towards the north pole ; the King of 
Owhyhee, attended by chieftains from the other islands of that clus- 
ter ; Col. M'P., on his return from the war in Ashantee, upon which 
occasion the gallant colonel presented the treaty and tribute from that 
country ; Admiral , on his appointment to the Baltic fleet ; Cap- 
tain 0. N., with despatches from the Red Sea, advising the destruc- 
tion of the piratical armament and settlements in that quarter, as 
also in the Persian Gulf; Sir T. O'N., the late resident in Nepaul, to 
present his report of the war in that territory, and in adjacent re 
gions — names as yet unknown in Europe ; the governor of the 
Leeward Islands, on departing for the West Indies ; various deputa 
tions with petitions, addresses, &c., from islands in remote quarters 
of the globe, amongst Avhich we distinguished those from Prince Ed- 
ward Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, from the Mauritius, from 



190 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 



ing) the street; but either his majesty had never been of 
the party, or, from distance, I had failed to distinguish him. 
Now, for the first time, I was meeting him nearly face to 
face ; for, though the walk we occupied was not that in 
which the royal party were moving, it ran so near it, and 
was connected by so many cross walks at short intervals, 
that it was a matter of necessity for us, as we were now 
observed, to go and present ourselves. What happened 

Java, from the British settlement in Terra del Fuego, from the Chris- 
tian churches in the Society, Friendly, and Sandwich Islands — as 
well as other groups less known in the South Seas ; Admiral H. A., 
on assuming the command of the Channel fleet ; Major Gen. X. L., 
on resigning the lieutenant governorship of Gibraltar; Hon. G. F., on 
going out as secretary to the governor of Malta," &c. 

This sketch, too hastily made up, is founded upon a base of a very 
few years ; i. e., we have, in one or two instances, placed in juxtapo- 
sition, as coexistences, events separated by a few years. But if (like 
Milton's picture of the Roman grandeur) the abstraction had been 
made from a base of thirty years in extent, and had there been added 
to the picture (according to his precedent) the many and remote em- 
bassies to and from independent states, in all quarters of the earth, 
with how many more groups might the spectacle have been crowded, 
and especially of those who fall within that most picturesque deline- 
ation — 

" Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed " ! 

As it is, I have noticed hardly any places but such as lie absolutely 
within our jurisdiction. And yet, even under that limitation, how 
vastly more comprehensive is the chart of British dominion than of 
the Roman ! To this gorgeous empire, some corresponding style and 
title should have been adapted at the revision of the old title, and 
should yet be adapted. 

Apropos of the proposed change in the king's title : Coleridge, on 
being assured that the new title of the king was to be Emperor of 
the British Islands and their dependencies, and on the coin Impera- 
tor Britanniarum, remarked, that, in this remanufactured form, the 
title might be said to be japanned ; alluding to this fact, that amongst 
insular sovereigns, the only one knowm to Christian diplomacy by the 
title of emperor is the Sovereign of Japan. 



I ENTER THE WORLD 191 

was pretty nearly as follows : The king, having first 
spoken with great kindness to my companion, inquiring 
circumstantially about his mother and grandmother, as per- 
sons particularly well know-n to himself, then turned his 
eye upon me. My name, it seems, had been communicat- 
ed to him ; he did not, therefore, inquire about that. Was 
I of Eton } This was his first question. I replied that I was 
not, but hoped I should be. Had I a father living ? I had 
not: my father had been dead about eight years. "But 
you have a mother ? " I had. " And she thinks of send- 
ing you to Eton ? " I answered, that she had expressed 
such an intention in my hearing ; but I was not sure wheth- 
er that might not be in order to waive an arorument with 
the person to whom she spoke, who "happened to have been 
an Etonian. " O, but all people think highly of Eton ; 
every body praises Eton. Your mother does right to in- 
quire ; there can be no harm in that ; but the more she in- 
quires, the more she will be satisfied — that 1 can answer 
for." 

Next. came a question which had been suggested by my 
name. Had my family come into England with the Hu- 
guenots at the revocation of the edict of Nantz ? This 
was a tender point with me : of all things I could not en- 
dure to be supposed of French descent ; yet it was a vexa- 
tion I had constantly to face, as most people supposed that 
my name argued a French origin ; whereas a Norman 
origin argued pretty certainly an origin not French. 1 re- 
plied, with some haste, " Please your majesty, the family 
has been in England since the conquest." It is probable 
that I colored, or showed some mark of discomposure, with 
which, however, the king was not displeased, for he smiled, 
and said, " How do you know that ? " Here 1 was at a 
loss for a moment how to answer ; for I was sensible that it 
did not become me to occupy the king's attention with any 



192 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

long Stories or traditions about a subject so unimportant as 
my own family ; and yet it was necessary that I should 
say something, unless I would be thought to have denied 
my Huguenot descent upon no reason or authority. After 
a moment's hesitation, I said, in effect, that the family from 
which I traced my descent had certainly been a great and 
leading one at the era of the barons' wars, as also in one 
at least of the crusades ; and that I had myself seen many 
notices of this family, not only in books of heraldry, djc, 
but in the very earliest of all English books. " And what 
book was that ? " " Robert of Gloucester's * Metrical 
Chronicle,' which I understood, from internal evidence, 
to have been written about 1280." The king smiled 
again, and said, " I know, I know." But what it was that 
he knew, long afterwards puzzled me to conjecture. I 
now imagine, however, that he meant to claim a knowl- 
edge of the book I referred to — a thing which at that 
time I thought improbable, supposing the king's acquaint- 
ance with literature not to be very extensive, nor likely to 
have comprehended any knowledge at all of the black- 
letter period. But in this belief I was greatly mistaken, as 
I was afterwards fully convinced by the best evidence from 
various quarters. That library of 120,000 volumes, whicli 
George IV. presented to the nation, and which has since 
gone to swell the collection at the British Museum, had 
been formed (as I was often assured by persons to whom 
the whole history of the library, and its growth from small 
rudiments, was familiarly known) under -the direct per- 
sonal superintendence of George III. It was a favorite and 
pet creation ; and his care extended even to the dress- 
ing of the books in appropriate bindings, and (as one man 
told me) to their health; explaining himself to mean, that 
in any case where a book was worm-eaten, or touched 
however slightly with the worm, the king was anxious to 



I ENTER THE WORLD. 193 

prevent the injury from extending, or from infecting others 
by close neighborhood ; for it is supposed by many that 
such injuries spread rapidly in favorable situations. One 
of my informants was a German bookbinder of great re- 
spectability, settled in London, and for many years cm- 
ployed by the Admiralty as a confidential binder of records 
or journals containing secrets of office, &c. Through this 
connection he had been recommended to the service of his 
majesty, whom he used to see continually in the course of 
his attendance at Buckingham House, where the books 
were deposited. This artist had (originally in the way of 
his trade) become well acquainted with the money value 
of English books; and that knowledge cannot be acquired 
without some concurrent knowledge of their subject and 
their kind of merit. Accordingly, he was tolerably well 
qualified to estimate any man's attainments as a reading 
man ; and from him I received such circumstantial ac- 
counts of many conversations he had held with the king, 
evidently reported with entire good faith and simplicity, 
that I cannot doubt the fact of his majesty's very general 
acquaintance with English literature. Not a day passed, 
whenever the king happened to be at Buckingham House, 
without his coming into the binding room, and minutely in- 
specting the progress of the binder and his allies — the gild- 
ers, toolers, &c. From the outside of the book the transition 
was natural to its value in the scale of bibliography ; and 
in that way my informant had ascertained that the king 
was well acquainted, not only with Robert of Gloucester, 
but with all the other early chronicles, published by Hearne, 
and, in fact, possessed that entire series which rose at one 
period to so enormous a price. From this person I learned 
afterwards that the king prided himself especially upon 
his early foLos of Shakspeare ; that is to say, not merely 
upon the excellence of the individual copies in a biblio- 
13 



194 AUrOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

graphical sense, as "/aZZ copies" and having large mar- 
gins, &;c., but chiefly from their value in relation to the 
most authentic basis for the text of the poet. And thus 
it appears, that at least two of our kings, Charles I. and 
George III., have made it their pride to profess a rever- 
ential esteem for Shakspeare. This bookbinder added his 
attestation to the truth (or to the generally reputed truth) 
of a story which I had heard from other authority, viz., 
that the librarian, or, if not oflRcially the librarian, at least 
the chief director in every thing relating to the books, was 
an illegitimate son of Frederic, Prince of Wales, (son to 
George II.,) and therefore half-brother of the king. His 
own taste and inclinations, it seemed, concurred with his 
brother's wishes in keeping him in a subordinate rank 
and an obscure station ; in which, however, he enjoyed 
affluence without anxiety, or trouble, or courtly envy, and 
the luxury, which he most valued, of a superb library. 
He lived and died, I have heard, as plain Mr. Barnard. 
At one time I disbelieved the story, (which possibly may 
have been long known to the public,) on the ground that 
even George III. would not have differed so widely from 
princes in general as to leave a brother of his own, how- 
ever unaspiring, wholly undistinguished by public honors. 
But having since ascertained that a naval officer, well 
known to my own family, and to a naval brother of my 
own in particular, by assistance rendered to him repeat- 
edly when a midshipman in changing bis ship, was un- 
doubtedly an illegitimate son of George III., and yet that 
he never rose higher than the rank of post captain, though 
privately acknowledged by his father and other members 
of the royal family, I found the insufficiency of that ob- 
jection. The fact is, and it does honor to the king's mem- 
ory, he reverenced the moral feelings of his country 
which are, in this and in all points of domestic morals, 



I ENTER THE WORLD. 195 

severe and high toned, (I say it in defiance of writers, such 
as Lord Byron, Mr. Hazlitt, &c., who hated alike the just 
and the unjust pretensions of England,) in a degree ab- 
solutely incomprehensible to Southern Europe. He had his 
frailties like other children of Adam ; but he did not seek 
to fix the public attention upon them, after the fashion of 
Louis Quatorze, or our Charles II., and so many other 
continental princes. There were living witnesses (more 
than one) of his aberrations as of theirs ; but he, with 
better feelings than they, did not choose, by placing these 
witnesses upon a pedestal of honor, surmounted by he- 
raldic trophies, to emblazon his own transgressions to 
coming generations, and to force back the gaze of a re- 
mote posterity upon his own infirmities. It was his ambi- 
tion to be the father of his people in a sense not quite so 
literal. These were things, however, of which at that time 
I had not heard. 

During the whole dialogue, I did not even once remark 
that hesitation and iteration of words generally attributed 
to George III. ; indeed, so generally, that it must often have 
existed ; but in this case, I suppose that the brevity of his 
sentences operated to deliver him from any embarrassment 
of utterance, such as might have attended longer and more 
complex sentences, where some anxiety was natural to 
overtake the thoughts as they arose. When we observed 
that the king had paused in his stream of questions, which 
succeeded rapidly to each other, we understood it as a sig- 
nal of dismissal ; and making a profound obeisance, we re- 
tired backwards a few steps. His majesty smiled in a very 
gracious manner, waved his hand towards us, and said 
something (I did not know what) in a peculiarly kind ac- 
cent ; he then turned round, and the whole party along with 
him ; which set us at liberty without impropriety to turn to 
the right about ourselves, and make our egress from the 
gardens. 



196 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

This incident, to me at my age, was very naturally one 
of considerable interest. One reflection it suggested after- 
wards, which was this : Could it be likely that much truth 
of a general nature, bearing upon man and social interests, 
could ever reach the ear of a king, under the etiquette of a 
court, and under that one rule which seemed singly suffi- 
cient to foreclose all natural avenues to truth ? — the rule, I 
mean, by which it is forbidden to address a question to the 
king. I was well aware, before I saw him, that in the 
royal presence, like the dead soldier in Lucan, whom the 
mighty necromancing witch tortures back into a moment- 
ary life, I must have no voice except for answers : — 

" Vox illi linguaque tantum 
Responsura datur." * 

I was to originate nothing myself; and at my age, before 
so exalted a personage, the mere instincts of reverential 
demeanor would at any rate have dictated such a rule. 
But what becomes of that mean's general condition of mind 
in relation to all the great objects moving on the field of 
human experience, where it is a law generally for almost 
all who approach him, that they shall confine themselves 
to replies, absolute responses, or, at most, to a prosecution 
or carrying forward of a proposition delivered by the prO' 
tagonist, or supreme leader of the conversation ? For it 
must be remembered that, generally speaking, the effect 
of putting no question is to transfer into the other party's 
hands the entire originating movement of the dialogue ; 
and thus, in a musical metaphor, the great man is the sole 
modulator and determiner of the key in which the conver- 
sation proceeds. It is true, that sometimes, by travelling a 



* For the sake of those who are no classical scholars, I explain : 
Voice and language are restored to him only to the extent of replying. 



I ENTER THE WORLD. 197 

little beyond the question in your answer, you may enlarge 
the basis, so as to bring up some new train of thought 
which you wish to introduce, and may suggest fresh mat- 
ter as effectually as if you had the liberty of more openly 
guiding the conversation, whether by way of question or by 
direct origination of a topic ; but this depends on skill to 
improve an opening, or vigilance to seize it at the instant, 
and, after all, much upon accident ; to say nothing of the 
crime, (a sort of petty treason, perhaps, or, what is it?) if 
you should be detected in your " improvements " and " en- 
largements of basis." The king might say, " Friend, I 
must tell my attorney general to speak with you, for I de- 
tect a kind of treason in your replies. They go too far. 
They include something which tempts my majesty to a no- 
tice ; which is, in fact, for the long and the short of it, that 
you have been circumventing me half unconsciously into 
answering a question which has silently been insinuated by 
youy Freedom of communication, unfettered movement 
of thought, there can be none under such a ritual, which 
tends violently to a Byzantine, or even to a Chinese result 
of freezing, as it were, all natural and healthy play of the 
faculties under the petrific mace of absolute ceremonial 
and fixed precedent. For it will hardly be objected, that 
the privileged condition of a few official councillors and 
state ministers, whose hurry and oppression of thought 
from public care will rarely allow them to speak on any 
other subject than business, ca7i be a remedy large enough 
for so large an evil. True it is, that a peculiarly frank or 
jovial temperament in a sovereign may do much for a sea- 
son to thaw this punctilious reserve and ungenial con- 
straint ; but that is an accident, and personal to an individ- 
ual. And, on the other hand, to balance even this, it may 
be remarked, that, in all noble and fashionable society, 
where there happens to bo pride in sustaining what is 



198 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

deemed a good tone in conversation, it is peculiarly aimed 
at, (and even artificially managed,) that no lingering or loi* 
tering upon one theme, no protracted discussion, shall be 
allowed. And, doubtless, as regards merely the treatment 
of convivial or purely social communication of ideas, 
(which also is a great art,) this practice is right. I admit 
willingly that an uncultured brute, who is detected at an 
elegant table in the. atrocity of absolute discussion or dispu- 
tation, ought to be summarily removed by a police officer ; 
and possibly the law will warrant his being held to bail for 
one or two years, according to the enormity of his case. 
But men are not always enjoying, or seeking to enjoy, So- 
cial pleasure ; they seek also, and have need to seek con- 
tinually, both through books and men, intellectual growth, 
fresh power, fresh strength, to keep themselves ahead or 
abreast of this moving, surging, billowing world of ours ; 
especially in these modern times, when society revolves 
through so many new phases, and shifts its aspects with so 
much more velocity than in past ages. A king, especially 
of this country, needs, beyond most other men, to keep 
himself in a continual state of communication, as it were, 
by some vital and organic sympathy, with the most essen- 
tial of these changes. And yet this punctilio of etiquette, 
like some vicious forms of law or technical fictions grown 
too narrow for the age, which will not allow of cases com- 
ing before the court in a shape desired alike by the plain- 
tiff and the defendant, is so framed as to defeat equally the 
wishes of a prince disposed to gather knowledge wherever 
he can find it, and of those who may be best fitted to give it. 
For a ie\Y minutes on three other occasions, before we 
finally quitted Eton, I again saw the king, and always 
with renewed interest. He was kind to every body — con- 
descending and afl^able in a degree which I am bound to 
remember with personal gratitude ; and one thing I had 



I ENTER THE WORLD. 199 

heard of him, which even then, and much more as my 
mind opened to a wider compass of deeper reflection, won 
my respect. I have always reverenced a man of whom it 
could be truly said that he had once, and once only, (for 
more than once implies another unsoundness in the quality 
of the passion,) been desperately in love ; in love, that is to 
say, in a terrific excess, so as to dally, under suitable cir- 
cumstances, with the thoughts of cutting his own throat, or 
even (as the case might be) the throat of her whom he loved 
above all this world. It will be understood that I am not 
justifying such enormities ; on the contrary, they are 
wrong, exceedingly wrong ; but it is evident that people in 
general feel pretty much as I do, from the extreme sym- 
pathy with which the public always pursue the fate of any 
criminal who has committed a murder of this class, even 
though tainted (as generally it is) with jealousy, which, in 
itself, wherever it argues habitual mistrust, is an ignoble 
passion.* 

Great passions, (do not understand me, reader, as though 
I meant great appetites,) passions moving in a great orbit, 
and transcending little regards, are always arguments of 
some latent nobility. There are, indeed, but few men and 
few women capable of great passions, or (properly speak- 
ing) of passions at all. Hartley, in his mechanism of tne 
human mind, propagates the sensations by means of vibra- 
tions, and by miniature vibrations, which, in a Roman form 

* Accordingly, Coleridge has contended, and I think with truth, 
that the passion of Othello is not jealousy. So much I know by re- 
port, as the result of a lecture which he I'ead at the Royal Institution. 
His arguments I did not hear. To me it is evident that Othello's 
state of feeling was not that of a degrading, suspicious rivalship, but 
the state of perfect misery, arising out of this dilemma, the most af- 
fecting, perhaps, to contemplate of any which can exist, viz., the dire 
necessity of loving without limit one whom the heart pronounces to 
be unworthy of that love 



200 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

for such miniatures, he terms vihratiuncles. Now, of men 
and women generally, parodying that terminology, we 
ought to say — not that they are governed by passions, or 
at all capable of passions, but of passiundes. And thence 
it is that few men go, or can go, beyond a little love-liking'i, 
as it is called ; and hence also, that, in a world where so 
little conformity takes place between the ideal speculations 
of men and the gross realities of life, where marriages are 
governed in so vast a proportion by convenience, prudence, 
self-interest, — any thing, in short, rather than deep sym- 
pathy between the parties, — and, consequently, where so 
many men must be crossed in their inclinations, we yet 
hear of so few tragic catastrophes on that account. The 
king, however, was certainly among the number of those 
who are susceptible of a deep passion, if every thing be 
true that is reported of him. All the world has heard that 
he was passionately devoted to the beautiful sister of the 
then Duke of Richmond. That was before his marriage ; 
and I believe it is certain that he not only wished, but sin- 
cerely meditated, to have married her. So much is matter 
of notoriety. But other circumstances of the case have 
been sometimes reported, which imply great distraction 
of mind and a truly profound possession of his heart 
by that early passion ; which, in a prince whose feelings 
are liable so much to the dispersing and dissipating power 
of endless interruption from new objects and fresh claims 
on the attention, coupled also with the fact that he never, 
but in this one case, professed any thing amounting to ex- 
travagant or frantic attachment, do seem to argue that the 
king was truly and passionately in love with Lady Sarah 
Lennox. He had a demon upon him, and was under a real 
possession. If so, what a lively expression of the mixed 
condition of human fortunes, and not less of another truth 
equally affecting, viz., the dread conflicts with the will, 



I ENTER THE WORLD. 201 

the mighty agitations which silently and in darkness are 
convulsing many a heart, where, to the external eye, all is 
tranquil, — that this king, at the very threshold of his public 
career, at the' very moment when he was binding about his 
brows the golden circle of sovereignty, when Europe 
watched him with interest, and the kings of the earth with 
envy, not one of the vulgar titles to happiness being want- 
ing, — youth, health, a throne the most splendid on this 
planet, general popularity amongst a nation of freemen, 
and the hope which belongs to powers as yet almost un- 
tried, — that, even under these most flattering auspices, he 
should be called upon to make a sacrifice the most bitter of 
all to which human life is liable! He made it; and he 
might then have said to his people, " For you, and to my 
public duties, I have made a sacrifice which none of you 
would have made for me." In years long ago, I have 
heard a woman of rank recurring to the circumstances of 
Lady Sarah's first appearance at court after the king's 
marriage. If I recollect rightly, it occurred after that 
lady's own marriage with Sir Charles Bunbury. Many 
eyes were upon both parties at that moment, — female eyes, 
especially, — and the speaker did not disguise the excessive 
interest with which she herself observed them. Lady 
Sarah was not agitated, but the king was. He seemed 
anxious, sensibly trembled, changed color, and shivered., as 
Lady S. B. drew near. But, to quote the one single 
eloquent sentiment, which I remember after a lapse of 
thirty years, in Monk Lewis's Romantic Tales, " In 
this world all things pass away ; blessed be Heaven, and 
the bitter pangs by which sometimes it is pleased to recall 
its wanderers, even our passions pass away ! " And thus 
it happened that this storm also was laid asleep and for- 
gotten, together with so many others of its kind that have 
been, and that shall be again, so long as man is man, and 



202 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

woman woman. Meantime, in justification of a passion so 
profound, one \iould be glad to thinii: highly of the lady 
that inspired it ; and, therefore, I heartily hope that the in- 
sults offered to her memory in the scandalous " Memoirs 
of the Due de Lauzun " are mere calumnies, and records 
rather of his presumptuous wishes than of any actual 
successes.* 

* That book, I am aware, is generally treated as a forgery ; but 
internal evidence, drawn from the tone and quality of the revelations 
there made, will not allow me to think* it altogether such. There is 
an abandon and carelessness in parts which mark its sincerity. Its 
authenticity I cannot doubt. But that }3roves nothing for the truth 
of the particular stories which it contains. A book of scandalous 
and defamatory stories, especially where the writer has had the base- 
ness to betray the confidence reposed in his honor by women, and to 
boast of favors alleged to have been granted him, it is always fair to 
consider as ipso facto a tissue of falsehoods : and on the following 
argument, that these are exposures which, even if true, none but the 
basest of men would have made. Being, therefore, on the hypothesis 
most favorable to his veracity, the basest of men, the author is self- 
denounced as vile enough to have forged the stories, and cannot com- 
plain if he should be roundly accused of doing that which he has 
taken pains to prove himself capable of doing. This way of arguing 
might be applied with fatal effect to the Due de Lauzun's " Memoirs," 
supposing them written with a view to publication. But, by possi- 
bility, that was not the case. The Due de L. terminated his profli- 
gate life, as is well known, on the scaffold, during the storms of the 
French revolution; and nothing in his whole career won him so 
much credit as the way in which he closed it ; for he went to his 
death with a romantic carelessness, and even gayety of demeanor. 
His "Memoirs " were not published by himself: the publication was 
posthumous ; and by whom authorized, or for what purpose, is not 
exactly known. Probably the manuscript fell into mei-cenary hands, 
and was published merely on a speculation of pecuniary gain From 
some passages, however, I cannot but infer that the writer did not 
mean to bring it before the public, but wrote it rather as a series of pri- 
vate memoranda, to aid his own recollection of circumstances and 
dates. The Due de Lauzun's account of his intrigue with Lady 
Sarah goes so far as to allege, that he rode down in disguise, from 



I ENTER THE WORLD. 203 

However, to leave dissertation behind me, and to re- 
sume tlie thread of my narrative, an incident, which about 
this period impressed me even more profoundly than my 
introduction to a royal presence, was my first visit to 
London. 

London to Sir Charles B.'s country seat, agreeably to a previous as- 
signation, and that he was admitted, by that lady's confidential at- 
tendant, through a back staircase, at the time when Sir Charles (a 
fox hunter, but a man of the highest breeding and fashion) was him- 
self at home, and occupied in tlie duties of hospitality. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE NATION OF LONDON. 

It was a most heavenly day in May of this year (1800) 
when I first beheld and first entered this mighty wilder- 
ness, the city — no, not the city, but the nation — of Lon- 
don. Often since then, at distances of two and three hun- 
dred miles or more from this colossal emporium of men, 
wealth, arts, and intellectual power, have I felt the sublime 
expression of her enormous magnitude in one simple form 
of ordinary occurrence, viz., in the vast droves of cattle, 
suppose upon the great north roads, all with their heads di- 
rected to London, and expounding the size of the attracting 
body, together with the force of its attractive power, by the 
never-ending succession of these droves, and the remote- 
ness from the capital of the lines upon which they were 
moving. A suction so powerful, felt along radii so vast, 
and a consciousness, at the same time, that upon other 
radii still more vast, both by land and by sea, the same 
suction is operating, night and day, summer and winter, 
and hurrying forever into one centre the infinite means 
needed for her infinite purposes, and the endless tributes to 
the skill or tc the luxury of her endless population, crowds 
the imagination with a pomp to which there is nothing 
corresponding upon this planet, either amongst the things 

204 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 205 

that have heen or the things that are. Or, if any excep- 
tion there is, it must be sought in ancient Rome.* We, 
upon this occasion, were in an open carriage, and, chiefly 
(as I imagine) to avoid the dust, we approached London 

* " Ancient Rome ." — Vast, however, as the London is of this day, I 
incline to think that it is below the Kome of Trajan. It has long 
been a settled opinion amongst scholars, that the computations of Lip- 
sius, on this point, were prodigiously overcharged ; and formerly I 
shared in that belief But closer study of the question, and a labo- 
rious collation of the ditferent data, (for any single record, independ- 
ently considered, can liere establish nothing,) have' satisfied me that 
Lipsius was nearer the truth than his critics ; and that the Eoman 
population of every class — slaves, aliens, peoples of the suburbs, in- 
cluded — lay between four and six millions ; in which case the London 
of 1833, which counts more than a million and a half, but less than 
two millions, [Note. — Our present London of 1853 counts two millions, 
plus as many thousands as there are days in the year,] may be taken, 
xaia ni.aroq, as lying between one fourth and one thiixl of Rome. To 
discuss this question thoroughly would require a separate memoir, 
for which, after all, there are not sufficient materials: meantime I 
will make this remark : That tlie ordinary computations of a million, 
or a million and a quarter, derived from the surviving accounts of the 
different '' regions," apply to Eome loitliin the Pomcerium, and are, 
therefore, no more valid for the total Rome of Trajan's time, stretch- 
ing so many miles beyond it, than the bills of mortality for what is 
technically " London within the walls " can serve at this day as a base 
for estimating the poimlation of that total London which we mean and 
presume in our daily conversation. Secondly^ even for the Rome 
within these limits the computations are not commensurate, by not 
allowing for the prodigious height of the houses in Rome, Avhich much 
transcended that of modern cities. On this last point I will translate 
a remarkable sentence from the Greek rhetorician Aristides, [Note. — 
Aelius Aristides, Greek by his birth, who flourished in the time of the 
Antonines;] to some readers it will be new and interesting: "And, 
as oftentimes we see that a man Avho greatly excels others in bulk and 
strength is not content with any display, however ostentatious, of his 
powers, short of that where he is exhibited surmounting himself with 
a pyramid of other men, one set standing upon the shoulders of an- 
other, so also this city, stretching forth her foundations over areas so 



206 • AUTOBIOGKAPHIC SKETCHES. 

by rural lanes, where any such could be found, or, at least, 
along by-roads, quiet and shady, collateral to the main 
roads. In that mode of approach we missed some fea- 
tures of the sublimity belonging to any of the corn- 
vast, is yet not satisfied with those superficial dimensions ; that contents 
her not ; but upon one city rearing another of corresponding propor- 
tions, and upon that another, pile resting upon pile, houses overlaying 
houses, in aerial succession ; so, and by similar steps, she achieves a 
character of architecture justifying, as it were, the very promise of 
her name ; and with reference to that name, and its Grecian meaning, 
we may say, that here nothing meets our eyes in any direction but 
mere Rome! RomeT^ [Note. — This word ' Foi^iy], (Rome,) on which 
the rhetorician plays, is the common Greek term for strength.\ " And 
hence," says Aristides, " I derive the following conclusion : that if 
any one, decomposing this series of strata, were disposed to unshell, as 
it were, this existing Rome from its present crowded and towering 
coacervations, and, thus degrading these aerial Romes, were to plant 
them on the ground, side by side, in orderly succession, according to 
all appearance, the whole vacant area of Italy would be filled with 
these dismantled stories of Rome, and we should be presented with 
the spectacle of one continuous city, stretching its labyrinthine pomp 
to the shores of the Adriatic." This is so far from being meant as a 
piece of rhetoric, that, on the very contrary, the whole purpose is to 
substitute for a vague and rhetorical expression of the Roman gran- 
deur one of a more definite character — viz., by presenting its dimen- 
sions in a new form, and supposing the city to be uncrested, as it were ; 
its upper tiers to be what the sailors call unshipped ; and the dethroned 
stories to be all drawn up in rank and file upon the ground ; accord- 
ing to which assumption he implies that the city would stretch from 
the vmre Superum to the mare Inferum, i. e., from the sea of Tuscany 
to the Adriatic. 

The fact is, as Casaubon remarked, upon occasion of a ridiculous 
blunder in estimating the largesses of a Roman emperor, that the 
error on most questions of Roman policy or institutions tends not, as 
is usual, in the direction of excess, but of defect. All things were 
colossal there ; and the probable, as estimated upon our modern scale, 
is not unfrequently the impossible, as regarded Roman habits. Lip- 
sius certainly erred extravagantly at times, and was a rash speculator 
on many subjects ; witness his books on the Roman amphitheatres ; but 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 207 

nion approaches upon a main road ; we missed the whirl 
and the uproar, the tumult and the agitation, which con- 
tinually thicken and thicken throughout the last dozen 
miles before you reach the suburbs. Already at three 
stages' distance, (say 40 miles from London,) upon some 
of the greatest roads, the dim presentiment of some vast 
capital reaches you obscurely and like a misgiving. This 
blind sympathy with a mighty but unseen object, some vast 
magnetic range of Alps, in your neighborhood, continues 
to increase you know not how. Arrived at the last station 
for changing horses, Barnet, suppose, on one of the north 
roads, or Hounslow on the western, you no longer think 
(as in all other places) of naming the next stage ; nobody 
says, on pulling up, " Horses on to London " — that would 
sound ludicrous ; one mighty idea broods over all minds, 
making it impossible to suppose any other destination. 
Launched upon this final stage, you soon begin to feel 
yourself entering the stream as it were of a Norwegian 
maelstrom ; and the stream at length becomes the rush of 
a cataract. What is meant by the Latin word trepidatio ? 
Not any thing peculiarly connected with panic ; it belongs 
as much to the hurrying to and fro of a coming battle as 
of a coming flight; to a marriage festival as much as to a 
massacre ; agitation is the nearest English word. This 
trepidation increases both audibly and visibly at every half 

not on the magnitude of Rome, or the amount of its population. I 
will add, upon this subject, that the whole political economy of the 
ancients, if we except Boeckh's accurate investigations, [Die Staats- 
haushaltmig der Athener,) which, properly speaking, cannot be called 
political economy, is a mine into Avhich scarce a single shaft has yet 
been sunk. But I must also add, that every thing will depend upon 
collation of facts, and the bringing of indirect notices into immediate 
juxtaposition, so as to throw light on each other. Direct and positive 
information there is little on these topics ; and that little has been 
gleantid. 



208 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

mile, pretty much as one may suppose the roar of Niagara 
and the thrilling of the ground to grow upon the senses in 
the last ten miles of approach, with the wind in its favor, 
until at length it would absorb and extinguish all other 
sounds whatsoever. Finally, for miles before you reach a 
suburb of London such as Islington, for instance, a last 
great sign and augury of the immensity which belongs to 
the coming metropolis forces itself upon the dullest 
observer, in the growing sense of his own utter insig- 
nificance. Every where else in England, you yourself, 
horses, carriage, attendants, (if you travel with any,) are 
regarded with attention, perhaps even curiosity ; at all 
events, you are seen. But after passing the final posthouse 
on every avenue to London, for the latter ten or twelve 
miles, you become aware that you are no longer noticed : 
nobody sees you ; nobody hears you ; nobody regards you ; 
you do not even regard yourself In fact, how should you, 
at the moment of first ascertaining your own total unim- 
portance in the sum of things? — a poor shivering unit in 
the aggregate of human life. Now, for the first time, 
whatever manner of man you were, or seemed to be, at 
starting, squire or " squireen," lord or lordling, and how- 
ever related to that city, hamlet, or solitary house from 
which yesterday or to-day you slipped your cable, be- 
yond disguise you find yourself but one wave in a total At- 
lantic, one plant (and a parasitical plant besides, needing 
alien props) in a forest of America. 

These are feelings which do not belong by preference 
to thoughtful people — far less to people merely senti- 
mental. No man ever was left to himself for the first 
time in the streets, as yet unknown, of London, but he 
must have been saddened and mortified, perhaps terrified, 
by the sense of desertion and utter loneliness which belong 
to his situation. No loneliness can be like that which 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 209 

weighs upon the heart in the centre of faces never ending, 
without voice or utterance for him ; eyes innumerable, that 
have " no speculation " in their orbs which he can under- 
stand ; and hurrying figures of men and women weaving 
to and fro, with no apparent purposes intelligible to a 
stranger, seeming like a mask of maniacs, or, oftentimes, 
like a pageant of phantoms. The great length of the 
streets in many quarters of London ; the continual opening 
of transient glimpses into other vistas equally far stretch- 
ing, going off at right angles to the one which you are 
traversing ; and the murky atmosphere which, settling upon 
the remoter end of every long avenue, wraps its termina- 
tion in gloom and uncertainty, — all these are circumstances 
aiding that sense of vastness and illimitable proportions 
which forever brood over the aspect of London in its in- 
terior. Much of the feeling which belongs to the outside 
of London, in its approaches for the last few miles, I had 
lost, in consequence of the stealthy route of by-roads, ly- 
ing near Uxbridge and Watford, through which we crept 
into the suburbs. But for that reason, the more abrupt and 
startling had been the effect of emerging somewhere 
into the Edgeware Road, and soon afterwards into the very 
streets of London itself; through what streets, or even 
what quarter of London, is now totally obliterated from my 
mind, having perhaps never been comprehended. All that 
I remember is one monotonous awe and blind sense of 
mysterious grandeur and Babylonian confusion, which 
seemed to pursue and to invest the whole equipage of human 
life, as we moved for nearly two * hours through streets ; 
sometimes brought to anchor for ten minutes or more by 

* " Two hours.''' — This slow progress must, however, in part be 

ascribed to Mr. Gr 's non-acquaintance with the roads, both town 

and rural, along the whole line of our progress from Uxbridge. 
14 



210 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

what is technically called a '' lock," that is, a line of car- 
riages of every description inextricably massed, and ob- 
structing each other, far as the eye could stretch ; and then, 
as if under an enchanter's rod, the " lock " seemed to 
thaw ; motion spread with the fluent race of light or sound 
through the whole ice-bound mass, until the subtile influence 
reached us also, who were again absorbed into the great 
rush of flying carriages ; or, at times, we turned olT into 
some less tumultuous street, but of the same mile-long 
character; and, finally, drawing up about noon, we alighted 
at some place, which is as little within my distinct remem- 
brance as the route by which we reached it. 

For what had we come ? To see London. And what 
were the limits within which we proposed to crowd that 

little feat.^ At five o'clock we were to dine at Porters , 

a seat of Lord Westport's grandfather ; and, from the dis- 
tance, it was necessary that we should leave London at 
half past three ; so that a little more than three hours were 
all we had for London. Our charioteer, my friend's tutor, 
was summoned away from us on business until that hour ; 
and we were left, therefore, entirely to ourselves and to 
our own skill in turning the time to the best account, for 
contriving (if such a thing were possible) to do something 
or other which, by any fiction of courtesy, or constructively, 
so as to satisfy a lawyer, or in a sense sufficient to win a 
wager, might be taken and received for having " seen 
London." 

What could be done ? We sat down, I remember, in a 
mood of despondency, to consider. The spectacles were 
too many by thousands ; inopes nos copia fecit ; our very 
wealth made us poor ; and the choice was distracted. But 
which of them all could be thought general or represen- 
tative enough to stand for the universe of London ? Wc 
could not traverse the whole circumference of this mighty 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 211 

orb ; that was clear ; and, therefore, the next best thing was 
to place ourselves as much as possible in some relation to the 
spectacles of London, which might answer to the centre. 
Yet how ? That sounded well and metaphysical ; but what 
did it mean if acted upon ? What was the centre of London 
for any purpose whatever, latitudinarian or longitudinarian, 
literary, social, or mercantile, geographical, astronomical, 
or (as Mrs. Malaprop kindly suggests) diabolical ? Ap- 
parently that we should stay at our inn ; for in that way we 
seemed best to distribute our presence equally amongst 
all, viz., by going to none in particular. 

Three times in my life I have had my taste — that is, my 
sense of proportions — memorably outraged. Once was by 
a painting of Cape Horn, which seemed almost treasonably 
below its rank and office in this world, as the terminal 
abutment of our mightiest continent, and also the hinge, as 
it were, of our greatest circumnavigations — of all, in fact, 
which can be called classical circumnavigations. To have 
" doubled Cape Horn " — at one time, what a sound it had ! 
yet how ashamed we should be if that cape were ever to 
be seen from the moon ! A party of Englishmen, I have 
heard, went up Mount ^Etna, during the night, to be ready 
for sunrise — a common practice with tourists both in Swit- 
zerland, Wales, Cumberland, &c. ; but, as all must see 
who take the trouble to reflect, not likely to repay the 
trouble ; seeing that every thing which offers a picture^ when 
viewed from a station nearly horizontal, becomes a mere 
map to an eye placed at an elevation of 3000 feet above it ; 
and so thought, in the sequel, the ^tna party. The sun, 
indeed, rose visibly, and not more apparelled in clouds 
than was desirable ; yet so disappointed were they, and so 
disgusted with the sun in particular, that they unanimously 
hissed him ; though, of r Durse, it was useless to cry " Off! 
otf ! " Here, however, the fault was in their own erroneous 



212 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

expectations, and not in the sun, who, doubtless, did his 
best. For, generally, a sunrise and a sunset ought to be 
seen from the valley, or at most horizontally.* But as to 
Cape Horn, that (by comparison with its position and its 
functions) was really a disgrace to the planet ; it is not the 
spectator that is in fault here, but the object itself, the 
Birmingham cape. For, consider, it is not only the " specu- 
lar mount," keeping watch and ward over a sort of trinity 
of oceans, and, by all tradition, the circumnavigator's gate 
of entrance to the Pacific, but also it is the temple of the 
god Terminus for all the Americas. So that, in relation to 
such dignities, it seemed to me, in the drawing, a make- 
shift, put up by a carpenter, until the true Cape Horn 
should be ready ; or, perhaps, a drop scene from the opera 
house. This was one case of disproportion : the others 
were — the final and ceremonial valediction of Garrick, on 
retiring from his profession ; and the Pall Mall inaugura- 
tion of George IV. on the day of his accession t to the 

* Hence it may be said, that nature regulates our position for such 
spectacles, without any intermeddling of ours. When, indeed, a 
mountain stands, like Snowdon or Great Gavel in Cumberland, at the 
centre of a mountainous region, it is not denied that, at some seasons, 
when the early beams strike through great vistas in the hills, splendid 
effects of light and shade are produced ; strange, however, rather 
than beautiful. But from an insulated mountain, or one upon the 
outer ring of the hilly tract, such as Skiddaw, in Cumberland, the 
first effect is to translate the landscape from a picture into a. map , 
and the total result, as a celebrated author once said, is the injinitj of 
littleness. 

t Accession was it, or his proclamation 1 The case was this : 
About the middle of the day, the king came out into the portico of 
Carlton House; and addressing himself (addressing his gestures, I 
mean) to the assemblage of people in Pall Mall, he bowed repeatedly 
to the right and to the left, and then retired. I mean no disrespect 
to that prince in recalling those circumstances ; no doubt, he acted 
upon the suggestion of others, and perhaps, also, under a sincere 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 213 

tlirone. The utter zrrelation, in both cases, of the audience 
to the scene, {auditnce, I say, as say we must, for the sum 
of the spectators in the second instance, as well as of the 
auditors in the first,) threw upon each a ridicule not to be 
effaced. It is in any case impossible for an actor to say 
words of farewell to those for whom he really designs his 
farewell. He cannot bring his true object before himself. 
To whom is it that he would offer his last adieus ? We 
are told by one — who, if he loved Garrick, certainly did not 
love Garrick's profession, nor would even, through him, 
have paid it any undue compliment — that the retirement of 
this great artist had " eclipsed the gayety of nations." To 
nations, then, to his own generation, it was that he owt;d 
his farewell ; but, of a generation, what organ is theie 
which can sue or be sued, that can thank or be thanked ? 
Neither by fiction nor by delegation can you bring their 
bodies into court. A king's audience, on the other hand? 
might be had as an authorized representative body. But, 
when we consider the composition of a casual and chance 
auditory, whether in a street or a theatre, — secondly, the 
small size of a modern audience, even in Drury Lane, (4500 
at the most,) not by one eightieth part the cornphmcnt of 
the Circus Maximus, — most of all, when we consider the 
want of symmetry or commensurateness, to any extended 
duration of time, in the acts of such an audience, which 
acts lie in the vanishing expressions of its vanishing emo- 
tions, — acts so essentially fugitive, even when organized 

emotion on witnessing the enthusiasm of those outside ; but that could 
not cure the original absurdity of recognizing as a representative 
audience, clothed with the national functions of recognizing himself, a 
chance gathering of passengers through a single street, between whom 
and any mob from his own stables and kitchens there could be no 
essential diflfereuce which ^gic, or law, or constitutional principle 
could recognize. 



214 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

into an art and a tactical system o{ inibrices and homhi, (as 
they were at Alexandria, and afterwards at the Neapolitan 
and Roman theatres,) that they could not protect them- 
selves from dying in the very moment of their birth, — lay- 
ing together all these considerations, we see the incongruity 
of any audience, so constitued, to any purpose less evanes- 
cent than their own tenure of existence. 

Just such in disproportion as these cases had severally 
been, was our present problem in relation to our time or 
other means for accomplishing it. In debating the matter, 
we lost half an hour ; but at length we reduced the question 
to a choice between Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's 
Cathedral. I know not that we could have chosen better. 
The rival edifices, as we understood from the waher, were 
about equidistant from our own station ; but, being too re- 
mote from each other to allow of our seeing both, " we 
tossed up," to settle the question between the elder lady 
and the younger. " Heads" came up, which stood for the 
abbey. But, as neither of us was quite satisfied with this 
decision, we agreed to make another appeal to the wisdom 
of chance, second thoughts being best. This time the 
cathedral turned up ; and so it came to pass that, with us, 
the having seen London meant having seen St. Paul's. 

The first view of St. Paul's, it may be supposed, over- 
whelmed us with awe ; and I did not at that time imagine 
that the sense of magnitude could be more deeply im- 
pressed. One thing interrupted our pleasure. The superb 
objects of curiosity within the cathedral were shown for 
separate fees. There were seven, I thin|?; ; and any one 
could be seen independently of the rest for a few pence. 
The whole amount was a trifle; fourteen pence, I think; 
but we were followed by a sort of persecution — " Would 
we not see the bell ? " " Would we not see the model ? " 



Surely we would not go away without visiting the whis^ 



afe 
fitl 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 215 

pering gallery? " — solicitations which troubled the silence 
and sanctity of the place, and must tease others as it then 
teased us, who wished to contemplate in quiet this great 
monument of the national grandeur, which was at that very 
time * beginning to take a station also in the land, as a de- 
pository for the dust of her heroes. What struck us most 
m the whole interior of the pile was the view taken from 
the spot immediately under the dome, being, in fact, the 
very same which, five years afterwards, received the re- 
mains of Lord Nelson. In one of the aisles going off from 
this centre, we saw the flags of France, Spain, and Holland, 
the whole trophies of the war, swinging pompously, and 
expanding their massy draperies, slowly and heavily, in the 
upper gloom, as they were swept at intervals by currents 
of air. At this moment we were provoked by the show- 
man at our elbow renewing his vile iteration of " Two- 
pence, gentlemen ; no more than twopence for each ; " and 
so on, until we left the place. The same complaint has 
been often made as to Westminster Abbey. Where the 
wrong lies, or where it commences, I know not. Certainly 
I nor any man can have a right to expect that the poor 
men who attended us should give up their time for noth- 
ing, or even to be angry with them for a sort of persecution, 
on the degree of which possibly might depend the comfort 
of their own famih'es. Thoughts of famishing children at 
home leave little room for nice regards of delicacy abroad. 
The individuals, therefore, might or might not be blamable. 
But in any case, the system is palpably wrong. The nation 
is entitled to a free enjoyment of its own public monu- 
ments ; not free only in the sense of being gratuitous, but 
free also from the molestation of shoivmen, with their im- 
perfect knowledge and their vulgar sentiment. 

* Already monuments had been voted by the House of Commons 
in this cathedral, and I am not sure but they were nearly completed, 
to two captains who had fallen at the Nile. 



216 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Yet, after all, what is this system of restriction an^ 
annoyance, compared with that which operates on the use of 
the national libraries ? or that^ again, to the system of exclu- 
sion from some of these, where an absolute interdict lies 
upon any use at all of that which is confessedly national 
property ? Books and manuscripts, which were originally 
collected and formally bequeathed to the public, under the 
generous and noble idea of giving to future generations 
advantages which the collector had himself not enjoyed, 
and liberating them from obstacles in the pursuit of knowl- 
edge which experience had bitterly imprinted upon his 
own mind, are at this day locked up as absolutely against 
me, you, or any body, as collections confessedly private. 
Nay, far more so ; for most private collectors of eminence, 
as the late Mr. Heber, for instance, have been distinguished 
for liberality in lending the rarest of their books to those 
who knew how to use them with effect. But, in the cases 
I now contemplate, the whole funds for supporting the 
proper offices attached to a library, such as librarians, sub- 
librarians, &c., which of themselves (and without the ex- 
press verbal evidence of the founder's will) presume q, public 
in the daily use of the books, else they are superfluous, 
have been applied to the creation of lazy sinecures, in be- 
half of persons expressly charged with the care of shutting 
out the public. Therefore, it is true, they are not sine- 
cures ; for that one care, vigilantly to keep out the public,* 

* This place suggests the mention of another crying abuse con- 
nected with this subject. In the year 1811 or 1810 came under par- 
liamentary notice and revision the law of copyright. In some excel- 
lent pamphlets drawn forth by the occasion, from Mr. Duppa, for 
instance, and several others, the whole subject was well probed, and 
many aspects, little noticed by the public, were exposed of that 
extreme injustice attached to the law as it then stood. The several 
monopolies connected with books were noticed a little; and not a 
little notice was taken of the oppressive privilege with which cer- 
tain public libraries (at that time, I think, elevei^were invested, 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 217 

they do take upon themselves ; and why ? A man loving 
books, like myself, might suppose that their motive was 
the ungenerous one of keeping the books to themselves. 
Far from it. In several instances, they will as little use 

of exacting, severally, a copy of each new book published. This 
downright robbery was palliated by some members of the House in 
that day, under the notion of its being a sort of exchange, or quid 
pro quo in return for the relief obtained by the statute of Queen 
Anne — the first which recognized litei*ary property. "For," argued 
they, "pi-eviously to that statute, supposing your book pirated, at 
common law you could obtain redress only for each copy proved to 
have been sold by the pirate ; and that might not be a thousandth 
part of the actual loss. Now, the statute of Queen Anne granting 
you a general redress, upon proof that a piracy had been com- 
mitted, you, the party relieved, were bound to express your sense 
of this relief by a return made to the public ; and the public is here 
represented by the great endowed libraries of the seven universities, 
the British Museum," &c., &c. But prima facie^ this was that selling 
of justice which is expressly renounced in Magna Charta; and why 
were proprietors of copyright, more than other proprietors, to make aa 
" acknowledgment " for their rights ? But supposing that just, why, 
especially, to the given public bodies ? Now, for my part, I think 
that this admits of an explanation : nine tenths of the authors in 
former days lay amongst the class who had received a college educa- 
tion ; and most of these, in their academic life, had benefited largely 
by old endowments. Giving up, therefore, a small tribute from their 
copyright, there was some color of justice in supposing that they 
were making a slight acknowledgment for past benefits received, and 
exactly for those benefits which enabled them to appear with any 
advantage as authors. So, I am convinced, the " servitude " first arose, 
and under this construction : which, even for those days, was often a 
fiction, but now is generally such. However, be the origin what it 
may, the ground upon which the public mind in 1811 (that small 
part of it, at least, which the question attracted) reconciled itself to 
the abuse was this — for a trivial Avrong, they alleged (but it was 
then shown that the wrong was not always trivial) one great good is 
achieved, viz., that all over the kingdom are dispersed eleven great 
depositories, in which all persons interested may, at all times, be sui*e 
of finding one copy of every book published. That did seem a great 



218 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

the books as suffer them to be used. And Jhus the whole 
plans and cares of the good (weighing his motives, I will 
say of the pious) founder have terminated in locking up and 
sequestering a large collection of books, some being great 

advantage, and a balance in point of utility (if none in point of jus- 
tice) to the wrong upon which it grew. But now mark the degree in 
which this balancing advantage is made available. 1. The eleven 
bodies are not equally careful to exact their copies ; that can only be 
done by retaining an agent in London ; and this agent is careless about 
books of slight money value. 2. Were it otherwise, of what final 
avail would a perfect set of the year's productions prove to a public 
not admitted freely to the eleven libraries ? 3. But, finally, if they 
were admitted, to what purpose (as regards this particular advantage) 
under the following custom, which, in some of these eleven libraries, 
(possibly in all,) was^ I well knew, established: annually the princi- 
pal librarian weeded the annual crop of all such books as displeased 
himself; upon which two questions arise: 1. Upon what principle? 
2. With what result ? I ansAver as to the first, that in this lustration 
he went upon no principle at all, but his own caprice, or what he 
called his own discretion ; and accordingly it is a fact known to many 
as well as myself, that a book, which some people (and certainly not 
the least meditative of this age) have pronounced the most original 
work of modern times, was actually amongst the books thus degraded ; 
it was one of those, as the phrase is, tossed " into the basket ; " and 
universally this fate is more likely to befall a work of original merit, 
which disturbs the previous way of thinking and feeling, than one of 
timid compliance with ordinary models. Secondly, with what result ? 
For the present, the degraded books, having been consigned to the 
basket, were forthwith consigned to a damp cellar. There, at any 
rate, they were in no condition to be consulted by the public, being 
piled up in close bales, and in a place not publicly accessible. But 
there can be no doubt that, sooner or later, their mouldering condition 
would be made an argument for selling them. And such, when we 
trace the operation of this law to its final stage, is the ultimate 
result of an infringement upon private rights almost unexampled in 
any other part of our civil economy. That sole beneficial result, for 
the sake of which some legislators were willing to sanction a wrong 
otherwise admitted to be indefensible, is so little protected and secured 
to the public, that it is first of all placed at the mercy of an agent in 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 219 

rarities, in situations where they are not accessible. Had 
he bequeathed them to the catacombs of Paris or of Naples, 
he couid,not have better provided for their virtual extinc- 
tion. I ask, Does no action at common law^ lie against the 
promoters of such enormous abuses ? O thou fervent re- 
former, — whose fatal tread he that puts his ear to the ground 
may hear at a distance coming onwards upon every road, — 
if too surely thou wilt work for me and others irreparable 
wrong and suffering, work also for us a little good ; this 
way turn the great hurricanes and levanters of thy wrath ; 
winnow me this chaff"; and let us enter at last the garners 
of pure wheat laid up in elder days for our benefit, and 
which for two centuries have been closed against our use ! 
London we left in haste, to keep an engagement of some 
standing at the Earl Howe's, my friend's grandfather. 
This great admiral, who had filled so large a station in the 
public eye, being the earliest among the naval heroes of 
England in the first war of the revolution, and the only 
one of noble birth, I should have been delighted to see ; St. 
Paul's, and its naval monuments to Captain Riou and Cap- 
tain , together with its floating pageantries of con- 
quered flags, having awakened within me, in a form of 
pecuhar solemnity, those patriotic remembrances of past 
glories, which all boys feel so much more vividly than men 
can do, in whom the sensibility to such impressions is 
blunted. Lord Howe, however, I was not destined to see ; 
he had died about a year before. Another death there had 

London, whose negligence or indifference may defeat the provision 
altogether, (I know a publisher of a splendid botanical work, who told 
me that, by forbearing to attract notice to it within the statutable 
time, he saved his eleven copies ;) and placed at the mercy of a libra- 
rian, who (or any one of his successors) may, upon a motive of malice 
to the author or an impulse of false taste, after all proscribe any part 
of the books thus dishonorably acquired. 



220 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

been, and very recently, in the family, and under circum- 
stances peculiarly startling ; and the spirits of the whole 
house were painfully depressed by that event at the time 
of our visit. One of the daughters, a younger sister of my 
friend's mother, had been engaged for some time to a 
Scottish nobleman, the Earl of Morton, much esteemed 
by the royal family. The day was at length fixed for the 
marriage ; and about a fortnight before that day arrived, 
some particular dress or ornament was brought to Porters, 
in which it was designed that the bride should appear at 
the altar. The fashion as to this point has often varied ; 
but at that time, I believe the custom was for bridal parties 
to be in full dress. The lady, when the dress arrived, 
was, to all appearance, in good health ; but, by one of those 
unaccountable misgivings which are on record in so many 
well-attested cases, (as that, for example, of Andrew Mar- 
velFs father,) she said, after gazing for a minute or two at 
the beautiful dress, firmly and pointedly, " So, then, that is 
my wedding dress ; and it is expected that I shall wear it 
on the 17th ; but I shall not ; I shall never wear it. On 
Thursday, the 17th, I shall be dressed in a shroud ! " All 
present were shocked at such a declaration, which the 
solemnity of the lady's manner made it impossible to re- 
ceive as a jest. The countess, her mother, even reproved 
her with some severity for the words, as an expression of 
distrust in the goodness of God. The bride elect made no 
answer but by sighing heavily. Within a fortnight, all 
happened, to the letter, as she had predicted. She was 
taken suddenly ill ; she died about three days before the 
marriage day, and was finally dressed in her shroud, 
according to the natural course of the funeral arrange- 
ments, on the morning that was to have been the wedding 
festival. 

Lord Morton, the nobleman thus suddenly and remark- 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 221 

ably bereaved of his bride, was the only gentleman who 
appeared at the dinner table. He took a particular inter- 
est in literature ; and it was, in fact, through his kindness 
that, for the first time in my life, I found myself somewhat 
in the situation of a " Ziow." The occasion of Lord Mor- 
ton's flattering notice was a particular copy of verses which 
had gained for me a public distinction ; not, however, I 
must own, a very brilliant one ; the prize awarded to me 
being not the first, nor even the second, — what on the 
continent is called the accessit, — it was simply the third ; 
and that fact, stated nakedly, might have left it doubtful 
whether I were to be considered in the light of one honored 
or of one stigmatized. However, the judges in this case, 
with more honesty, or more self-distrust, than belongs to 
most adjudications of the kind, had printed the first three 
of the successful essays. Consequently, it was left open 
to each of the less successful candidates to benefit by any 
difference of taste amongst their several friends ; and my 
friends in particular, with the single and singular exception 
of my mother, who always thought her own children infe- 
rior to other people's, had generally assigned the palm to 
myself. Lord Morton protested loudly that the case ad- 
mitted of no doubt ; that gross injustice had been done me ; 
and, as the ladies of the family were much influenced by 
his opinion, I thus came, not only to wear the laurel in 
their estimation, but also with the advantageous addition 
of having suffered some injustice. I was not only a victor, 
but a victor in misfortune. 

At this moment, looking back from a distance of fifty 
years upon those trifles, it may well be supposed that I do 
not attach so much importance to the subject of my fugi- 
tive honors as to have any very decided opinion one way 
or the other upon my own proportion of merit. I do not 
even recollect the major part of the verses : that which 1 



222 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

do recollect, inclines me to think that, in the structure of 
the metre and in the choice of the expressions, I had some 
advantage over my competitors, though otherwise, perhaps, 
my verses were less finished ; Lord Morton migh there- 
fore, in a partial sense, have been just, as well as kind. 
But, little as that may seem likely, even then, and at the 
moment of reaping some advantage from my honors, which 
gave me a consideration with the family I was amongst 
such as I could not else have had, most unaffectedly I 
doubted in my own mind whether I were really entitled to 
the praises which I received. My own verses had not at 
all satisfied myself; and though I felt elated by the notice 
they had gained me, and gratified by the generosity of 
the earl in taking my part so warmly, I was so more in a 
spirit of sympathy with the kindness thus manifested in 
my behalf, and with the consequent kindness which it pro- 
cured me from others, than from any incitement or support 
which it gave to my intellectual pride. In fact, whatever 
estimate I might make of those intellectual gifts which I 
believed or which I knew myself to possess, I was inclined, 
even in those days, to doubt whether my natural vocation 
lay towards poetry. Well, indeed, I knew, and I know 
that, had I chosen to enlist amongst the soi disant poets 
of the day, — amongst those, I mean, who, by mere force 
of talent and mimetic skill, contrive to sustain the part of 
poet in a scenical sense and with a scenical effect, — I also 
could have won such laurels as are won by such merit ; I 
also could have taken and sustained a place taliter qualiter 
amongst the poets of the time. Why not then ? Simply 
because 1 knew that me, £is them, would await the certain 
destiny in reversion of resigning that place in the next 
generation to some younger candidate having equal or 
greater skill in appropriating the vague sentiments and old 
traditionary language of passion spread through books, but 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 



223 



having also the advantage of novelty, and of a closer 
adaptation to the prevailing taste of the day. Even at 
that early age, I was keenly alive, if not so keenly as at 
this moment, to the fact, that by far the larger proportion 
of what is received in every age for poetry, and for a 
season usurps that consecrated name, is not the spontaneous 
overflow of real unaffected passion, deep, and at the same 
time original, and also forced into public manifestation of 
itself from the necessity which cleaves to all passion alike 
of seeking external sympathy : this it is not; but a coun- 
terfeit assumption of such passion, according to the more 
or less accurate skill of the writer in distinguishing the key 
of passion suited to the particular age ; and a concurrent 
assumption of the language of passion, according to his 
more or less skill in separating the spurious from the 
native and legitimate diction of genuine emotion. Rarely, 
indeed, are the reputed poets of any age men who groan, 
like prophets, under the burden of a message which they 
have to deliver, and must deliver, of a mission which they 
must discharge. Generally, nay, with much fewer excep- 
tions, perhaps, than would be readily believed, they are 
merely simulators of the part they sustain ; speaking not 
out of the abundance of their own hearts, but by skill and 
artifice assuming or personating emotions at second hand ; 
and the whole is a business of talent, (sometimes even of 
great talent,) but not of original power, of genius,* or 
authentic inspiration. 

* The words genius and talent are frequently distinguished from 
each other by those who evidently misconstrue the true distinction 
entirely, and sometimes so grossly as to use them by way of expres- 
sions for a mere difference in degree. Thus, " a man of great talent, 
absolutely a genius,^^ occurs in a very well-written tale at this moment 
before me ; as if being a man of genius implied only a greater thaa 
ordinary degree of talent. 



224 AUTOBIOGRArHIC SKETCHES. 

From Porters, after a few days' visit, we returned to 
Eton. Her majesty about this time gave some splendid 
fetes at Frogmore, to one or two of wiiich she had directed 
that we should be invited. The invitation was, of course, 

Talent and genius are in no one point allied to each other, except 
generically — that both express modes of intellectual power. But the 
kinds of power are not merely different; they are in polar opposition 
to each other. Talent is intellectual power of every kind, which acts 
and manifests itself by and through the will and the active forces. 
Genius, as the verbal origin implies, is that much rarer species of in- 
tellectual power which is derived from the genial nature, — from the 
spirit of suffering and enjoying, — from the spirit of pleasure and pain, 
as organized more or less perfectly ; and this is independent of the 
will. It is a function of the passive nature. Talent is conversant with 
the adaptation of means to ends. But genius is conversant only with 
ends. Talent has no sort of connection, not the most remote or 
shadowy, with the moj-al nature or temperament ; genius is steeped 
and saturated with this moral nature. 

This was written twenty years ago. Now, (1853,) when revising it, 
1 am tempted to add three brief annotations : — 

1st. It scandalizes me that, in the occasional comments upon this 
distinction which have reached my eye, no attention should have been 
paid to the profound suggestions as to the radix of what is meant by 
genius latent in the word genial. For instance, in an extract made 
by " The Leader," a distinguished literary journal, from a recent 
work entitled "Poetics," by Mr. Dallas, there is not the slightest 
notice taken of this subtile indication and leading towards the truth. 
Yet surely that is hardly philosophic. For could Mr. Dallas suppose 
that the idea involved in the word genial had no connection, or 
none but an accidental one, with the idea involved in the word 
genius'? It is clear that from the Roman conception (whencesoever 
emanating) of the natal genius, as the secret and central representa- 
tive of what is most characteristic and individual in the nature of 
every human being, are dei'ived alike the notion of the genial and our 
modern notion of genius as contradistinguished from talent. 

2d. As another broad character of distinction between genius and 
talent, I would observe, that genius differentiates a man from all 
other men ; whereas talent is the same in one man as in another i 
that is, where it exists at all, it is the mere echo and reflex of the 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 225 

on my friend's account ; but her majesty had condescended to 
direct that I, as his visitor, should be specially included. 
Lord Westport, young as he was, had become tolerably in- 
different about such things ; but to me such a scene was a 
novelty; and, on that account, it was settled we should go 
as early as was permissible. We did go ; and I was not 
sorry to have had the gratification of witnessing (if it were 
but for once or twice) the splendors of a royal party. But, 
after the first edge of expectation was taken ofi*, — after the 
vague uncertainties of rustic ignorance had -given place to 
absolute realities, and the eye had become a httle familiar 
with the flashing of the jewelry, — I began to suffer under 
the constraints incident to a young person in such a situa- 
tion — the situation, namely, of sedentary passiveness, 
where one is acted upon, but does not act. The music, in 
fact, was all that continued to delight me ; and, but for that, 
I believe I should have had some difficulty in avoiding so 
monstrous an indecorum as yawning. I revise this faulty 
expression, however, on the spot ; not the music only it 
was, but the music combined with the dancing, that so 
deeply impressed me. The ball room — a temporary erec- 
tion, with something of the character of a pavilion about 
it — wore an elegant and festal air ; the part allotted to the 
dancers being fenced off by a gilded lattice work, and orna- 
mented beautifully from the upper part with drooping 



same talent, as seen in thousands of other men, differing only by more 
and less, but not at all in quality. In genius, on the contrary, no 
two men were ever duplicates of each other. 

3d. All talent, in whatsoever class, reveals itself as an effort — as 
a counteraction to an opposing difficulty or hinderance; Avhereas 
genius universally moves in headlong sympathy and concurrence 
with spontaneous power. Talent w^orks universally by intense re- 
aistance to an antagonist force ; whereas genius works under a rapture 
of necessity and spontaneity. 
15 



226 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

festoons of flowers. But all the luxury that spoke to the 
eye merely faded at once by the side of impassioned dan^ 
cing sustained by impassioned "music. Of all the scenes 
which this world offers, none is to me so profoundly in- 
teresting, none (I say it deliberately) so affecting, as the 
spectacle of men and women floating through the mazes of 
a dance ; under these conditions, however, that the music 
shall be rich, resonant, and festal, the execution of the 
dancers perfect, and the dance itself of a character to ad- 
mit of free, fluent, and continuous motion. But. this last 
condition will be sought vainly in the quadrilles, &c., which 
have for so many years banished the truly beautiful country 
dances native to England. Those whose taste and sensi- 
bility were so defective as to substitute for the heautiful in 
dancing the merely difficulty were sure, in the end, to trans- 
fer the depravations of this art from the opera house to the 
floors of private ball rooms. The tendencies even then 
were in that direction ; but a^ yet they had not attained 
their final stage ; and the English country dance * was still 

=* This word, I am well aware, grew out of the French word contre 
danse; indicating the regular contraposition of male and female part- 
ners in the first arrangement of the dancers. The word country dance 
was therefore originally a corruption ; but, having once arisen and 
taken root in the language, it is far better to retain it in its colloquial 
form ; better, I mean, on the general principle concerned in such 
cases. For it is, in fact, by such corruptions, by offsets upon an old 
stock, arising through ignorance or mispronunciation originally, that 
every language is frequently enriched ; and new modifications of 
thought, unfolding themselves in the progress of society, generate for^ 
themselves concurrently appropriate expressions. Many words in the 
Latin can be pointed out as having passed through this process. It 
must not be allowed to weigh against the validity of a word once fairly 
naturalized by use, that originally it crept in upon an abuse or a cor- 
ruption. Prescription is as strong a ground of legitimation in a case 
of this nature as it is in law. And the old axiom is applicable — Fieri 
non debuit, factum valet. Were it otherwise, languages would be 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 227 

in esti nation at the courts of princes. Now, of all dances, 
this is the only one, as a class, of which you can truly de- 
scribe the motion to be continuous^ that is, not interrupted 
or fitful, but unfolding its fine mazes with the equability of 
light in its diffusion through free space. And wherever 
the music happens to be not of a light, trivial character, 
but charged with the spirit of festal pleasure, and the per- 
formers in the dance so far skilful as to betray no awk- 
wardness verging on the ludicrous, I believe that many peo- 
ple feel as I feel in such circumstances, viz., derive from 
the spectacle the very grandest form of passionate sadness 
which can belong to any spectacle whatsoever. Sadness 
is not the exact word ; nor is there any word in any lan- 
guage (because none in the finest languages) which exact- 
ly expresses the state ; since it is not a depressing, but a 
most elevating state to which I allude. And, certainly, it 
is easy to understand, that many states of pleasure, and in 
particular the highest, are the most of all removed from 
merriment. The day on which a Roman triumphed was 
the most gladsome day of his existence ; it was the crown 
and consummation of his prosperity ; yet assuredly it wau 
also to him the most solemn of his days. Festal music, of 
a rich and passionate character, is the most remote of any 

robbed of much of their wealth. And, universally, the class of purists, 
in matters of language, are liable to grievous suspicion, as almost con- 
stantly proceeding on half knowledge and on insufficient principles. 
For example, if I have read one, I have read twenty letters, addressed 
to newspapers, denouncing the name of a great quarter in London, 
Mary-le-bone, as ludicrously ungrammatical. The writers had learned 
(or were learning) French ; and they had thus become aware, that 
neither the article nor the adjective was right. True, not right for 
the current age, but perfectly right for the age in which the name 
arose ; but, for want of elder French, they did not know that in our 
Chaucer's time both were right, Le was then the article feminine as 
well as masculine, and bone was then the true form for the adjective. 



228 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHiES. 

from vulgar hilarity. Its very gladness and pomp is im- 
pregnated with sadness, but sadness of a grand and aspir- 
ing order. Let, for instance, (since without individual illus- 
trations there is the greatest risk of being misunderstood,) 
any person of musical sensibility listen to the exquisite mu- 
sic composed by Beethoven, as an opening for BiJrger's 
" Lenore," the running idea of which is the triumphal return 
of a crusading host, decorated with laurels and with palms, 
within the gates of their native city ; and then say whether 
the presiding feeling, in the midst of this tumultuous festiv- 
ity, be not, by infinite degrees, transcendent to any thing so 
vulgar as hilarity. In fact, laughter itself is of all things 
the most equivocal ; as the organ of the ludicrous, laughter 
is allied to the trivial and the mean ; as the organ of joy, it 
is allied to the passionate and the noble. From all which 
the reader may comprehend, if he should not happen ex- 
perimentally to have felt, that a spectacle of young men 
and women, fowhig through the mazes of an intricate 
dance under a full volume of music, taken with all the cir- 
cumstantial adjuncts of such a scene in rich men's halls ; 
the blaze of lights and jewels, the life, the motion, the sea- 
like undulation of heads, the interweaving of the figures, 
the (xvuicvxlojaig or self-revolving, both of the dance and 
the music, " never ending, still beginning," and the contin- 
ual regeneration of order from a system of motions which 
forever touch the very brink of confusion ; that such a spec- 
tacle, with such circumstances, may happen to be capable 
of exciting and sustaining the very grandest emotions of 
philosophic melancholy to which the human spirit is open. 
The reason is, in part, that such a scene presents a sort of 
mask of human life, with its whole equipage of pomps and 
glories, its luxury of sight and sound, its hours of golden 
youth, and the interminable revolution of ages hurrying 
after ages, and one generation treading ipon the flying foot- 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 229 

Steps of another ; whilst all the while the overruling music 
attempers the mind to the spectacle, the subject to the object, 
the beholder to the vision. And, although this is known to 
be but one phasis of life, — of life culminating and in ascent, 
— yet the other (and repulsive) phasis is concealed upon the 
hidden or averted side of the golden arras, known but not 
felt ; or is seen but dimly in the rear, crowding into indistinct 
proportions. The effect of the music is, to place the mind 
in a state of elective attraction for every thing in harmony 
with its own prevailing key. 

This pleasure, as always on similar occasions, I had at 
present ; but naturally in a degree corresponding to the 
circumstances of royal splendor through which the scene 
revolved ; and, if I have spent rather more words than 
should reasonably have been requisite in describing any 
obvious state of emotion, it is not because, in itself, it ia 
either vague or doubtful, but because it is difficult, without 
calling upon a reader for a little reflection, to convince 
him that there is not something paradoxical in the asser- 
tion, that joy and festal pleasure, of the highest kind, are 
liable to a natural combination with solemnity, or even 
with melancholy the most profound. Yet, to speak in the 
mere simplicity of truth, so mysterious is human nature, 
and so little to be read by him who runs, that almost every 
weighty aspect of truth upon that theme will be found at 
first sight to be startling, or sometimes paradoxical. And 
so little need is there for chasing or courting paradox, 
that, on the contrary, he who is faithful to his own ex- 
periences will find all his efforts little enough to keep 
down the paradoxical air besieging much of what he knows 
to be the truth. No man needs to search for paradox in 
this world of ours. Let him simply confine himself to the 
truth, and he will find paradox growing every where under 
his hands as rank as weeds. For new truths of impor- 



230 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

tance are rarely agreeable to any preconceived theories , 
that is, cannot be explained by these theories; which are 
insufficient, therefore, even where they are true. And 
universally, it must be borne in mind, that not that is 
paradox which, seeming to be true, is upon examination 
false, but that which, seeming to be false, may upon ex- 
amination be found true.* 

The pleasure of which I have been speaking belongs to 
all such scenes ; but on this particular occasion there was 
also something more. To see persons in " the body " of 
whom you have been reading in newspapers from the very 
earliest of your reading days, — those, who have hitherto 
been great ideas in your childish thoughts, to see and to 
hear moving and talking as carnal existences amongst 
other human beings, — had, for the first half hour or so, 
a singular and strange effect. But this naturally waned 
rapidly after it had once begun to wane. And when these 
first startling impressions of novelty had worn off, it must 
be confessed that the peculiar circumstances attaching 
to a royal ball were not favorable to its joyousness or 
genial spirit of enjoyment. I am not going to repay hei 
majesty's condescension so ill, or so much to abuse the 
privileges of a guest, as to draw upon my recollections 
of what passed for the materials of a cynical critique. 
Every thing was done, I doubt not, which court etiquette 
permitted, to thaw those ungenial restraints which gave to 

* And therefore it was with strict propriety that Boyle, anxious 
to fix public attention upon some truths of hydrostatics, published 
them avowedly as paradoxes. According to the false popular notion 
of what it is that constitutes a paradox, Boyle should be taken to 
mean that these hydrostatic theorems were fallacies. But far from 
it. Boyle solicits attention to these propositions — not as seeming to 
be true and turning out false, but, reversely, as wearing an air of 
falsehood and turning out true. 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 231 

the whole too much of a ceremonial and official character, 
and to each actor in the scene gave too much of the air 
belonging to one who is discharging a duty, and to the 
youngest even among the principal personages concerned 
gave an apparent anxiety and jealousy of manner — jeal- 
ousy, I mean, not of others, but a prudential jealousy of 
his own possible oversights or trespasses. In fact, a great 
personage bearing a state character cannot be regarded, 
nor regard himself, with the perfect freedom which belongs 
to social intercourse ; no, nor ought to be. It is not rank 
alone which is here concerned ; that, as being his own, he 
might lay aside for an hour or two ; but he bears a rep- 
resentative character also. He has not his own rank 
only, but the rank of others, to protect; he (supposing him 
the sovereign or a prince near to the succession) embodies 
and impersonates the majesty of a great people ; and this 
character, were you ever so much encouraged to do so, 
you, the iSimttj;^ the lay spectator or " assister," neither 
could nor ought to dismiss from your thoughts. Besides 
all which, it must be acknowledged, that to see brothers 
dancing with sisters — as too often occurred in those dances 
to which the princesses were parties — disturbed the appro- 
priate interest of the scene, being irreconcilable with the 
allusive meaning of dancing in general, and laid a weight 
upon its gayety which no condescensions from the highest 
quarter could remove. This infelicitous arrangement 
forced the thoughts of all present upon the exalted rank 
of the parties which could dictate and exact so unusual 
an assortment. And that rank, again, it presented to us 
under one of its least happy aspects ; as insulating a 
blooming young woman amidst the choir of her coevals, 
and surrounding her with dreadful solitude amidst a vast 
crowd of the young, the brave, the beautiful, and the 
accomplished. 



232 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Meantime, as respected myself individually,! had reason 
to be grateful : every kindness and attention were shown 
to me. My invitation I was sensible that I owed entirely 
to my noble friend. But, having been invited, I felt as- 
sured, from what passed, that it was meant and provided 
that I should not, by any possibility, be suffered to think 
myself overlooked. Lord Westport and I communicated 
our thoughts occasionally by means of a language which 
we, in those days, found useful enough at times, and which 
bore the name of Zijili. The language and the name were 
both derived (that is, were immediately so derived, for 
remotely the Ziph language may ascend to Nineveh) from 
Winchester. Dr. Mapleton, a physician in Bath, who at- 
tended me in concert with Mr. Grant, an eminent surgeon, 
diuring the nondescript malady of the head, happened to 
have had three sons at Winchester ; and his reason for re- 
moving them is worth mentioning, as it illustrates the well- 
known system o^ fagging. One or more of them showed 
to the quick medical eye of Dr. Mapleton symptoms of 
declining health ; and, upon cross questioning, he found 
that, being (as juniors) /a^s (that is, bondsmen by old pre- 
scription) to appointed seniors, they were under the neces- 
sity of going out nightly into the town for the purpose of 
executing commissions ; but this was not easy, as all the 
regular outlets were closed at an early hour. In such a 
dilemma, any route, that was barely practicable at what- 
ever risk, must be traversed by the loyal fag ; and it so hap- 
pened that none of any kind remained open or accessible, 
except one ; and this one communication happened to have 
escaped suspicion, simply because it lay through a suc- 
cession of temples and sewers sacred to the goddesses Cloa- 
cina and Scavengerina. That of itself was not so ex- 
traordinary a fact : the wonder lay in the number, viz., 
seventeen. Such were the actual amount of sacred edificea 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 233 

which, through all their dust, and garbage, and mephitic 
morasses, these miserable vassals had to thread all hut 
every night of the week. Dr. Mapleton, when he had 
made this discovery, ceased to wonder at the medical symp- 
toms ; and, as faggery was an abuse too venerable and 
sacred to be touched by profane hands, he lodged no idle com- 
plaints, but simply removed his sons to a school where the 
Serbonian bogs of the subterraneous goddess might not inter- 
sect the nocturnal line of march so very often. One day, dur- 
ing the worst of my illness, when the kind-hearted doctor 
was attempting to amuse me with this anecdote, and ask- 
ing me whether I thought Hannibal would have attempted 
his march over the Little St. Bernard, — supposing that he 
and the elephant which he rode had been summoned to 
explore a route through seventeen similar nuisances, — he 
went on to mention the one sole accomplishment which his 
sons had imported from Winchester. This was the Ziph 
language, communicated at Winchester to any aspirant 
for a fixed fee of one half guinea, but which the doctor 
then communicated to me — as I do now to the reader — 
gratis. I make a present of this language without fee, or 
price, or entrance money, to my honored reader ; and let 
him understand that it is undoubtedly a bequest of elder 
times. Perhaps it may be coeval whh the pyramids. For 
in the famous " Essay on a Philosophical Character," (I for- 
get whether that is the exact title,) a large folio written by 
the ingenious Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester,* and pub- 
lished early in the reign of Charles II., a folio which I, in 
youthful days, not only read but studied, this language is 

=* This Dr. Wilkins was related by marriage to Cromwell, and is 
better known to the world, perhaps, by his Essay on the possibility 
of a passage (or, as the famous author of the " Pursuits of Litera- 
ture " said, by way of an episcopal metaphor, the possibility of a 
translation) to the moon. 



234 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

recorded and accurately described amongst many other 
modes of cryptical communication, oral and visual, spoken, 
written, or symbolic. And, as the bishop does not speak 
of it as at all a recent invention, it may probably at that 
time have been regarded as an antique device for conduct- 
ing a conversation in secrecy amongst bystanders; and 
this advantage it has, that it is applicable to all languages 
alike ; nor can it possibly be penetrated by one not initiated 
in the mystery. The secret is this — (and the grandeur 
of simplicity at any rate it has) — repeat the vowel or 
diphthong of every syllable, prefixing to the vowel so 
repeated the letter G. Thus, for example : Shall we go 
away in an hour ? Three hours we have already staid. 
This in Ziph becomes : Shagall wege gogo agawagatj 
igin agan hoiigour ? Threegee hougoiirs wege hagave 
agalreageady gy stagaid* It must not be supposed that 
Ziph proceeds slowly. A very little practice gives the 
greatest fluency ; so that even now, though certainly I 
cannot have practised it for fifty years, my power of speak- 
ing the Ziph remains unimpaired. I forget whether in the 
Bishop of Chester's account of this cryptical language the 
consonant intercalated be G or not. Evidently any con- 
sonant will answer the purpose. F or L would be softer, 
and so far better. 

In this learned tongue it was that my friend and I 
communicated our feelings ; and, having staid nearly four 
hours, a time quite sufficient to express a proper sense of 
the honor, we departed ; and, on emerging into the open 
high road, we threw up our hats and huzzaed, meaning 



* One omission occurs to me on reviewing this account of the 
Ziph, which is — that I should have directed the accent to be placed 
on the intercalated syllable: thus, ship becomes shiyip, -with the em 
phasis on gip ; run becomes rugun, &c. 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 235 

no sort of disrespect, but from uncontrollable pleasure in 
recovered liberty. 

Soon after this we left Eton for Ireland. Our first 
destination being Dublin, of course we went by Holyhead. 
The route at that time, from Southern England to Dublin, 
did not (as in elder and in later days) go round by Chester. 
A few miles after leaving Shrewsbury, somewhere about 
Oswestry, it entered North Wales ; a stage farther Drought 
us to the celebrated vale of Llangollen ; and, on reaching 
the approach to this about sunset on a beautiful evening 
of June, I first found myself amongst the mountains — a 
feature in natural scenery for which, from my earliest 
days, it was not extravagant to say that I had hungered and 
thirsted. In no one expectation of my life have I been 
less disappointed ; and I may add, that no one enjoyment 
has less decayed or palled upon my continued experience. 
A mountainous region, with a slender population, and 
that of a simple pastoral character ; behold my chief con- 
ditions of a pleasant permanent dwelling-place ! But, 
thus far I have altered, that noio I should greatly prefer 
forest scenery — such as the New Forest, or the Forest of 
Dean in Gloucestershire. The mountains of Wales range 
at about the same elevation as those of Northern England ; 
three thousand and four to six hundred feet being the 
extreme limit which they reach. Generally speaking, 
their forms are less picturesque individually, and they are 
less happily grouped than their English brethren. I have 
since also been made sensible by Wordsworth' of one 
grievous defect in the structure of the Welsh valleys ; too 
generally they take the hasin shape — the level area at 
their foot does not detach itself with sufficient precision 
from the declivities that surround them. Of this, however, 
1 was not aware at the time of first seeing Wales ; although 
the striking effect from the opposite form of the Cumber- 



236 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKET( lES. 

land and Westmoreland valleys, which almost universally 
present a flat area at the base of the surrounding hills, 
level, to use Wordsworth's expression, ' as the jioor of a 
temple^'''' would, at any rate, have arrested my eye, as a 
circumstance of impressive beauty, even though the want 
of such a feature might not, in any case, have affected me 
as a fault. As something that had a positive value, this 
characteristic of the Cumbrian valleys had fixed my atten- 
tion, but not as any telling point of contrast against the 
Cambrian valleys. No faults, however, at that early age 
disturbed my pleasure, except that, after one whole day's 
travelling, (for so long it cost us between Llangollen and 
Holyhead,) the want of water struck me upon review as 
painfully remarkable. From Conway to Bangor (seventeen 
miles) we were often in sight of the sea ; but fresh water 
we had seen hardly any ; no lake, no stream much beyond 
a brook. This is certainly a conspicuous defect in North 
Wales, considered as a region of fine scenery. The few 
lakes I have since become acquainted with, as that near 
Bala, near Beddkelert, and beyond Machynleth, are not 
attractive either in their forms or in their accompaniments ; 
the Bala Lake being meagre and insipid, the others as 
it were unfinished, and unaccompanied with their furniture 
of wood. 

At the Head (to call it by its common colloquial name) 
we were detained a few days in those unsteaming times 
by foul winds. Our time, however, thanks to the hospi- 
tality of a certain Captain Skinner on that station, did .lot 
hang heavy on our hands, though we were imprisoned, 
as it were, on a dull rock ; for Holyhead itself is a little 
island of rock, an insulated dependency of Anglesea ; 
which, again, is a little insulated dependency of North 
Wales. The packets on this -station were at that time 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 237 

lucrative comrrands ; and they were given (perhaps are* 
given?) to post captains in the navy. Captain Skinner 
was celebrated for his convivial talents ; he did the 
honors of the place in a hospitable style ; daily asked us 
to dine with him, and seemed as inexhaustible in his wit 
as in his hospitality. 

This answered one purpose, at least, of special con- 
venience to our party at that moment : it kept us from 
all necessity of meeting each other during the day, except 
under circumstances where we escaped the necessity of 
any familiar communication. Why that should have 
become desirable, arose upon the following mysterious 
change of relations between ourselves and the Rev. Mr. 

Gr , Lord Westport's tutor. On the last day of our 

journey, Mr. G., who had accompanied us thus far, but 
now at Holyhead was to leave us, suddenly took offence 
(or, at least, then first showed his offence) at something 
we had said, done, or omitted, and never spoke one 
syllable to either of us again. Being both of us amiably 
disposed, and incapable of having seriously meditated 
either word or deed likely to wound any person's feelings, 
we were much hurt at the time, and often retraced the 
little incidents upon the road, to discover, if possible, 
what it was that had laid us open to misconstruction. 
But it remained to both of us a lasting mystery. This 
tutor was an Irishman, of Trinity College, Dublin, and, I 
believe, of considerable pretensions as a scholar ; but, 
being reserved and haughty, or else presuming in us a 
knowledge of our offeree, which we really had not, he 
gave us no opening for any explanation. To the last 
moment, however, he manifested a punctilious regard to 
the duties of his charge. He accompanied us in our 
boat, on a dark and gusty night, to the packet, which 

* Written twenty years ago. 



238 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

lay a little out at sea. He saw us on board ; and then, 
standing up for one moment, he said, " Is all right on 
deck ? " " All right, sir," sang out the ship's steward. 
" Have you. Lord Westport, got your boat cloak with 
you ? " " Yes, sir." " Then, pull away, boatmen." 
We listened for a time to the measured beat of his re- 
treating oars, marvelHng more and more at the atrocious 
nature of our crime which could thus avail to intercept 
even his last adieus. I, for my part, never saw him again ; 
nor, as I have reason to think, did Lord Westport. Neither 
did we ever unravel the mystery. 

As if to irritate our curiosity still more. Lord Westport 
showed me a torn fragment of paper in his tutor's hand- 
writing, which, together with others, had been thrown (as 
he believed) purposely in his way. If he was right in that 
belief, it appeared that he had missed the particular frag- 
ment which was designed to raise the veil upon our guilt ; 
for the one he produced contained exactly these words : 
" With respect to your ladyship's anxiety to know how far 
the acquaintance with Mr. De Q. is likely to be of service 

to your son, I think I may now venture to say that" 

There the sibylline fragment ended ; nor could we torture 
it into any further revelation. However, both of us saw 
the propriety of not ourselves practising any mystery, nor 
giving any advantage to Mr. G. by imperfect communi- 
cations ; and accordingly, on the day after we reached 
Dublin, we addressed a circumstantial account of our jour- 
ney and our little mystery to Lady Altamont in England ; 
for to her it was clear that the tutor had confided his 
mysterious wrongs. Her ladyship answered with kind- 
ness ; but did not throw any light on the problem which 
exercised at once our memories, our skill in conjectural 
interpretation, and our sincere regrets. Lord Westport 
and I regretted much that there had not been a wider 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 239 

margin attached to the fragment of Mr. G.'s letter to 
Lady Altamont ; in which case, as I could readily have 
mimicked his style of writing, it would ha\e been easy for 
me to fill up thus : " With respect to your ladyship's 
anxiety, &;c., I think I may now venture to say that, if the 
solar system were searched, there could not be found a 
companion more serviceable to your son than Mr. De Q. 
He speaks the Ziph most beautifully. He writes it, I am 
told, classically. And if there were a Ziph nation as well 
as a Ziph language, I am satisfied that he would very soon 
be at the head of it; as he already is, beyond all competi- 
tion, at the head of the Ziph literature." Lady Altamont, 
on receiving this, would infallibly have supposed him 
mad ; she would have written so to all her Irish friends, 
and would have commended the poor gentleman to the 
care of his nearest kinsmen ; and thus we should have had 
some little indemnification for the annoyance he had 
caused us. I mention this trifle, simply because, trifle a? 
it is, it involved a mystery, and furnishes an occasion for 
glancing at that topic. Mysteries as deep, with results a 
little more important and foundations a little sounder, have 
many times crossed me in life ; one, for instance, I recol- 
lect at this moment, known pretty extensively to the neigh- 
borhood in which it occurred. It was in the county of 

S . A lady married, and married well, as was thought. 

About twelve months afterwards, she returned alone in a 
post chaise to her father's house ; paid, and herself dis- 
missed, the postilion at the gate ; entered the house ; as- 
cended to the room in which she had passed her youth, and 
known in the family by her name ; took possession of it again ; 
intimated by signs, and by one short letter at her first 
arrival, what she would require; lived for nearly twenty 
years in this state of La Trappe seclusion and silence; nor 
ever, to the hour of her death, explained what circum- 



240 AXTTOBIOGEAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Stances had dissolved the supposed happy connection she had 
formed, or what had become of her husband. Her looks 
and gestures were of a nature to repress all questions in 
the spirit of mere curiosity ; and the spirit of affection 
naturally respected a secret which was guarded so se- 
verely. This might be supposed a Spanish tale ; yet it 
happened in England, and in a pretty populous neighbor- 
hood. The romances which occur in real life are too 
often connected with circumstances of criminality in some 
one among the parties concerned ; on that account, more 
than any other, they are often suppressed ; else, judging by 
the number which have fallen within my own knowledge, 
they must be of more frequent occurrence than is usually 
supposed. Among such romances, those cases, perhaps, 
form an unusual proportion in which young, innocent, and 
high-minded persons have made a sudden discovery of 
some great profligacy or deep unworthiness in the person 
to whom they had surrendered their entire affections. 
That shock, more than any other, is capable of blighting, 
in one hour, the whole after existence, and sometimes of 
at once overthrowing the balance of life or of reason. In- 
stances I have known of both ; and such afflictions are the 
less open to any alleviation, that sometimes they are of a 
nature so delicate as to preclude all confidential communi- 
cation of them to another ; and sometimes it would be even 
dangerous, in a legal sense, to communicate them. 

A sort of adventure occurred, and not of a kind pleasant 
to recall, even on this short voyage. The passage to 
Dublin from the Head is about sixty miles, I believe ; yet, 
from baffling winds, it cost us upwards of thirty hours. 
On the second day, going upon deck, we found that our 
only fellow-passenger of note was a woman of rank, cele- 
brated for her beauty ; and not undeservedly, for a lovely 
creature she was. The body of her travelling coach had 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 241 

been, as usual, unslung from the " carriage," (by which is 
technically meant the wheels and the perch,) and placed 
upon deck. This she used as a place of retreat from the 
sun during the day, and as a resting-place at night. For 
want of more interesting companions, she invited us, during 
the day, into her coach ; and we taxed our abilities to 
make ourselves as entertaining as we could, for we were 
greatly fascinated by the lady's beauty. The second night 
proved very sultry ; and Lord Westport and myself, suffer- 
ing from the oppression of the cabin, left our berths, and 
lay, wrapped up in cloaks, upon deck. Having talked for 
some hours, we were both on the point of falling asleep, 
when a stealthy tread near our heads awoke us. It was 
starlight ; and we traced between ourselves and the sky the 
outline of a man's figure. Lying upon a mass of tarpaul- 
ings, we were ourselves undistinguishable, and the figure 
moved in the direction of the coach. Our first thought 
was to raise an alarm, scarcely doubting that the purpose 
of the man was to rob the unprotected lady of her watch 
or purse. But, to our astonishment, we saw the coach 
door silently swing open under a touch from within. All 
was as silent as a dream ; the figure entered, the door 
closed, and we were left to interpret the case as we might. 
Strange it was that this lady could permit herself to cal- 
culate upon absolute concealment in such circumstances. 
We recollected afterwards to have heard some indistinct 
rumor buzzed about the packet on the day preceding, 
that a gentleman, and some even spoke of him by name 
as a Colonel , for some unknown purpose, was con- 
cealed in the steerage of the packet. And other appear- 
ances indicated that the affair was not entirely a secret 
even amongst the lady's servants. To both of us the story 
proclaimed a moral already sufficiently current, viz., that 
women of the highest and the very lowest rank are alike 
16 



242 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

thrown too much into situations of danger and temptation.* 
I might mention some additional circumstances of criminal 
aggravation in this lady's case ; but, as they would tend to 
point out the real person to those acquainted with her 
history, I shall forbear. She has since made a noise in' 
the world, and has maintained, I believe, a tolerably fair 
reputation. Soon after sunrise the next morning, a 
heavenly morning of June, we dropped our anchor in the 
famous Bay of Dublin. There was a dead calm ; the sea 
was like a lake ; and, as we were some miles from the 
Pigeon House, a boat was manned to put us on shore. The 
lovely lady, unaware that we were parties to her guilty 
secret, went with us, accompanied by her numerous attend- 
ants, and looking as beautiful, and hardly less innocent, 
than an angel. Long afterwards. Lord Westport and I 
met her, hanging upon the arm of her husband, a manly 
and good-natured man, of polished manners, to whom she 
introduced us ; for she voluntarily challenged us as her 
fellow-voyagers, and, I suppose, had no suspicion which 
pointed in our direction. She even joined her husband in 
cordially pressing us to visit them at their magnificent 
chateau. Upon us,- meantime, whatever might be her levity, 
the secret of which accident had put us in possession 
pressed with a weight of awe ; we shuddered at our own 
discovery ; and we both agreed to drop no hint of it in any 
direction.t 



* But see the note on this point at the end of the volume. 

t Lord Westport's age at that time was the same as my own ; that 
is, we both wanted a few months of being fifteen. But I had the 
advantage, perhaps, in thoughtfulness and observation of life. Being 
thoroughly free, however, from opinion ativeness, Lord "VYestport 
readily came over to any views of mine for which I could show suffi- 
cient grounds. And on this occasion I found no difficulty in convin- 
cing him that honor and fidelity did not form sufficient guaranties 



THE NATION OF LONDON. 24.3 

Landing about three miles from Dublin, (according to my 
present remembrance at Dunleary,) we w-ere not long in 
reaching Sackville Street. 

for the custody of secrets. Presence of mind so as to revive one's 
obligations in time, tenacity of recollection, and vigilance over one's 
own momentary slips of tongue, so as to keep watch over indirect 
disclosures, are also requisite. And at that time I had an instance 
within my own remembrance where a secret had been betrayed, by a 
person of undoubted honor, but most inadvertently betrayed, and in 
pure oblivion of his engagement to silence. Indeed, unless where the 
secret is of a nature to affect some person's life, I do not believe that 
most people would remember beyond a period of two years the most 
solemn • obligations to secrecy. After a lapse of time, varying of 
course with the person, the substance of the secret will remain upon 
the mind ; but how he came by the secret, or under what circum- 
stances, he will very probably have forgotten. It is unsafe to rely 
upon the most religious or sacramental obligation to secrecy, unless, 
together with the secret, you could transfer also a magic ring that 
should, by a growing pressure or puncture, sting a man into timely 
alarm and warning. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
DUBLIN. 

In Sackville Street stood the town house of Lord Alta- 
mont ; and here, in the breakfast room, we found the earl 
seated. Long and intimately as I had known Lord West- 
port, it so happened that I had never seen his father, who 
had, indeed, of late almost pledged himself to a continued 
residence in Ireland by his own patriotic earnestness as an 
agricultural improver ; whilst for his son, under the diffi- 
culties and delays at that time of all travelling, any resi- 
dence whatever in England seemed preferable, but espe- 
cially a residence with his mother amongst the relatives of 
his distinguished English grandfather, and in such close 
neighborhood to Eton. Lord Altamont once told me, 
that the journey outward and inward between Eton and 
Westport, taking into account all the unavoidable devia- 
tions from the direct route, in compliance with the claims 
of kinship, &c., (a case which in Ireland forced a traveller 
often into a perpetual zigzag,) counted up to something 
more than a thousand miles. That is, in effect, when 
valued in loss of time, and allowance being made for the 
want of continuity in those parts of the travelling system 
that did not accurately dovetail into each other, not less 
than one entire fortnight must be annually sunk upon a 

244 



DUBLIN. 245 

labor that yielded no commensurate fruit. Hence the 
long three-years' interval which had separated father and 
son ; and hence my own nervous apprehension, as we were 
racing through the suburbs of Dublin, that I should una- 
voidably lay a freezing restraint upon that reunion to 
which, after such a separation, both father and son must 
have looked forward with anticipation so anxious. Such 
cases of unintentional intrusion are at times inevitable ; 
but, even to the least sensitive, they are always distressing; 
most of all they are so to the intruder, who in fact feels 
himself in the odd position of a criminal without a crime. 
He is in the situation of one who might have happened to 
be chased by a Bengal tiger (or, say that the tiger were a 
sheriff's officer) into the very centre of the Eleusinian 
mysteries. Do not tease me, my reader, by alleging that 
there were no sheriffs' officers at Athens or Eleusis. Not 
many, I admit ; but perhaps quite as many as there were 
of Bengal tigers. In such a case, under whatever com- 
pulsion, the man has violated a holy seclusion. He has 
seen that which he ought not to have seen ; and he is 
viewed with horror by the privileged spectators. Should 
he plead that this was his misfortune, and not his fault, the 
answer would be, " True ; it was your misfortune ; we 
know it ; and it is our misfortune to be under the necessity 
of hating you for it." But there was no cause for similar 
fears at present ; so uniformly considerate in his kindness 
was Lord Altamont. It is true, that Lord Westport, as an 
only child, and a child to be proud of, — for he was at 
that time rather handsome, and conciliated general good 
will by his engaging manners, — was viewed by his father 
with an anxiety of love that sometimes became almost 
painful to witness. But this natural self-surrender to a 
first involuntary emotion Lord Altamont did not suffer to 
usurp any such lengthened expression as might too pain- 



246 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

fully have reminded me of being " one too many." One 
solitary half minute being paid down as a tribute to the 
sanctities of the case, his next care was to withdraw me, 
the stranger, from any oppressive feeling of strangership. 
And accordingly, so far from realizing the sense of being 
an intruder, in one minute under his courteous welcome 
I had come to feel that, as the companion of his one 
darling ^pon earth, me also he comprehended within his 
paternal regards. 

It must have been nine o'clock precisely when we en- 
tered the breakfast room. So much I know by an a priori 
argument, and could wish, therefore, that it had been 
scientifically important to know it — as important, for in- 
stance, as to know the occultation of a star, or the transit 
of Venus to a second. For the urn was at that moment 
placed on the table ; and though Ireland, as a whole, is 
privileged to be irregular, yet such was our Sackville 
Street regularity, that not so much nine o'clock announced 
this periodic event, as inversely this event announced nine 
o'clock. And I used to affirm, however shocking it might 
sound to poor threadbare metaphysicians incapable of 
transcendental truths, that not nine o'clock was the cause 
of revealing the breakfast urn, but, on the contrary, that 
the revelation of the breakfast urn was the true and secret 
cause of nine o'clock — a phenomenon which otherwise 
no candid reader will pretend that he can satisfactorily 
account for, often as he has known it to come round. The 
urn was already throwing up its column of fuming mist ; 
and the breakfast table was covered with June flowers sent 
by a lady on the chance of Lord Westport's arrival. It 
was clear, therefore, that we were expected ; but so we 
had been for three or four days previously ; and it illus- 
trates the enormous uncertainties of travelling at this 
closing era of the eighteenth century, that for three or 



DUBLIN. 247 

four clays more we should have been expected without the 
least anxiety in case any thing had occurred to detain us 
on the road. In fact, the possibility of a Holyhead packet 
being lost had no place in the catalogue of adverse contin- 
gencies — not even when calculated by mothers. To 
come by way of Liverpool or Parkgate, was not without 
grounds of reasonable fear : I myself had lost acquaint- 
ances (schoolboys) on each of those lines of transit. 
Neither Bristol nor Milford Haven was entirely cloudless 
in reputation. But from Holyhead only one packet had 
ever been lost ; and that was in the days of Queen Anne, 
when I have good reason to think that a villain was on 
board, who hated the Duke of Marlborough ; so that this 
one exceptional case, far from being looked upon as a 
public calamity, would, of course, be received thankfully 
as cleansing the nation from a scamp. 

Ireland was still smoking with the embers of rebellion ; 
and Lord Cornwallis, who had been sent expressly to extin- 
guish it, and had won the reputation of having fulfilled this 
mission with energy and success, was then the Idrd 
lieutenant ; and at that moment he was regard<3d with 
more interest than any other public man. Accordingly I 
was not sorry when, two mornings after our arrival. Lord 
Altamont said to us at breakfast, " Now, if you wish to see 
what I call a great man, go with me this morning, and you 
shall see Lord Cornwallis ; for that man who has given 
peace both to the east and to the west — taming a tiger in 
the Mysore that hated England as much as Hannibal hated 
Rome, and in Ireland pulling up by the roots a French 
invasion, combined with an Irish insurrection — will always 
for me rank as a great man." We willingly accompanied 
the earl to the Phoenix Park, where the lord lieutenant 
was then residing, and were privately presented to him. I 



248 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

had seen an engraving (celebrated, I believe, in its day) 
of Lord Cornwallis receiving the young Mysore princes as 
hostages at Seringapatam ; and I knew the outline of his 
public services. This gave me an additional interest in 
seeing him ; but I was disappointed to find no traces in his 
manner of the energy and activity I presumed him to 
possess ; he seemed, on the contrary, slow or even heavy, 
but benevolent and considerate in a degree which won the 
confidence at once. Him we saw often ; for Lord Alta- 
mont took us with him wherever and whenever we wished ; 
and me in particular (to whom the Irish leaders of society 
were as yet entirely unknown by sight) it gratified highly 
to see persons of historical names — names, I mean, his- 
torically connected with the great events of Elizabeth's or 
Cromwell's era — attending at the Phcenix Park. But the 
persons whom I remember most distinctly of all whom I 
was then in the habit of seeing, were Lord Clare, the 
chancellor, the late Lord Londonderry, (then Castlereagh,) 
at that time the Irish chancellor of the exchequer, and the 
speaker of the House of Commons, (Mr. Foster, since, I 
believe, created Lord Oriel.) With the speaker, indeed. 
Lord Altamont had more intimate grounds of connection 
than with any other public man ; both being devoted to the 
encouragement and personal superintendence of great 
agricultural improvements. Both were bent on intro- 
ducing, through models difl^used extensively on their own 
estates, English husbandry, English improved breeds of 
cattle, and, where that was possible, English capital and 
skill, into the rural economy of Ireland. 

Amongst the splendid spectacles which I witnessed, as 
the mcst splendid I may mention an installation of the 
Knights of St. Patrick. There were six knights installed 
on this occasion, one of the six being Lord Altamont. He 
had no doubt received his ribbon as a reward for his 



DUBLIN. 249 

parliamentary votes, and especially in the matter of the union ; 
yet, from all his conversation upon that question, and from 
the general conscientiousness of his private life, I am con- 
vinced that he acted all along upon patriotic motives, and 
m obedience to his real views (whether right or wrong) of 
the Irish interests. One chief reason, indeed, which de- 
tained us in Dublin, was the necessity of staying for this 
particular installation. At one time. Lord Altamont had 
designed to take his son and myself for the two esquires 
who attend the new-made knight, according to the ritual 
of this ceremony ; but that plan was laid aside, on learn- 
ing that the other five knights were to be attended by 
adults ; and thus, from being partakers as actors, my friend 
and I became simple spectators of this splendid scene, 
which took place in the Cathedral of St. Patrick. So 
easily does mere external pomp slip out of the memory, 
as to all its circumstantial items, leaving behind nothing 
beyond the general impression, that at this moment I re- 
member no one incident of the whole ceremonial, except 
that some foolish person laughed aloud as the knights went 
up with their offerings to the altar ; the object of this un- 
feeling laughter being apparently Lord Altamont, who hap- 
pened to be lame — a singular instance of levity to exhibit 
within the walls of such a building, and at the most solemn 
part of such a ceremony, which to my mind had a three- 
fold grandeur : 1st, as symbolic and shadowy ; 2d, as repre- 
senting the interlacings of chivalry with religion in the 
highest aspirations of both; 3d, as national; placing the 
heraldries and military pomps of a people, so memorably 
faithful to St. Peter's chair, at the foot of the altar. Lord 
Westport and I sat with Lord and Lady Castlereagh. They 
were both young at this time, and both wore an impressive 
appearance of youthful happiness ; neither, happily for 
their peace of mind, able to pierce that cloud of years, 



250 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

not much more than twenty, which divided them from the 
day destined in one hour to wreck the happiness of both. 
We had met both on other occasions ; and their conversa- 
tion, through the course of that day's pomps, was the most 
interesting circumstance to me, and the one which I 
remember with most distinctness of all that belonged to 
the installation. By the way, one morning, on occasion 
of some conversation arising about Irish bulls, I made an 
agreement with Lord Altamont to note down in a memo- 
randum book every thing throughout my stay in Ireland, 
which, to my feeling as an Englishman, should seem to 
be, or should approach to, a bull. And this day, at dinner, 
I reported from Lady Castlereagh's conversation what 
struck me as such. Lord Altamont laughed, and said, 
" My dear child, I am sorry that it should so happen, for it 
is bad to stumble at the beginning ; your bull is certainly 
a bull ; * but as certainly Lady Castlereagh is your country- 
woman, and not an Irishwoman at all." Lady Castlereagh, 
it seems, was a daughter of Lord Buckinghamshire ; and 
her maiden name was Lady Emily Hobart. 

One other public scene there was, about this time, in 
Dublin, to the eye less captivating, but far more so in a 

* The idea of a hull is even yet undefined ; which is most extraor- 
dinary, considering that Miss Edgeworth has applied all her tact and 
illustrative power to furnish the matter for such a definition, and 
Coleridge all his philosophic subtlety (but in this instance, I think, 
with a most infelicitous result) to furnish its form. But both have 
been too fastidious in their admission of bulls. Thus, for example, 
Miss Edgeworth rejects, as no true bull, the common Joe Miller story, 
that, upon two Irishmen reaching Barnet, and being told that it was 
still twelve miles to London, one of them remarked, " Ah ! just six 
miles a/jace." This, says Miss E., is no bull, but a sentimental re- 
mark on the maxim, that friendship divides our pains. Nothing of 
the kind : Miss Edgeworth cannot have understood it. The bull is a 
true representative and exemplary specimen of the genus. 



DUBLIN. 251 

moral sense ; more significant practically, more burdened 
with hope and with fear. This was the final ratification 
of the bill which united Ireland to Great Britain. I do not 
know that any one public act, or celebration, or solemnity, 
in my time, did, or could, so much engage my profoundest 
sympathies. Wordsworth's fine sonnet on the extinction 
of the Venetian republic had not then been published, 
else the last two lines would have expressed my feelings. 
After admitting that changes had taken place in Venice, 
which in a manner challenged and presumed this last and 
mortal change, the poet goes on to say, that all this long 
preparation for the event could not break the shock of it. 
Venice, it is true, had become a shade ; but, after all, — 

" Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade 
Of that which once was great has passed away." 

But here the previous circumstances were far different 
from those of Venice. There we saw a superannuated and 
paralytic state, sinking at any rate into the grave, and 
yielding, to the touch of military violence, that only which 
a brief lapse of years must otherwise have yielded to 
internal decay. Here, on the contrary, we saw a young 
eagle, rising into power, and robbed prematurely of her 
natural honors, only because she did not comprehend their 
value, or because at this great crisis she had no champion. 
Ireland, in a political sense, was surely then in her youth, 
considering the prodigious developments she has since 
experienced in population and in resources of all kinds. 
This great day of union had been long looked forward 
to by me ; with some mixed feelings also by my young 
friend, for he had an Irish heart, and was jealous of what- 
ever appeared to touch the banner of Ireland. But it was 
not for him to say any thing which should seem to impeach 
his father's patriotism in voting for the union, and promot- 



252 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

ing it through his borough influence. Yet oftentimes it 
seemed to me, when I introduced the subject, and sought to 
learn from Lord Altamont the main grounds which had 
reconciled him and other men, anxious for the welfare of 
Ireland, to a measure which at least robbed her of some 
splendor, and, above all, robbed her of a name and place 
amongst the independent states of Europe, that neither 
father nor son was likely to be displeased, should some 
great popular violence put force upon the recorded will of 
Parliament, and compel the two Houses to perpetuate them- 
selves. Dolorous they must of course have looked, in mere 
consistency ; but I fancied that internally they would have 
laughed. Lord Altamont, I am certain, believed (as multi- 
tudes believed) that Ireland would be bettered by the com- 
mercial advantages conceded to her as an integral province 
of the empire, and would have benefits which, as an inde- 
pendent kingdom, she had not. It is notorious that this 
expectation was partially realized. But let us ask, Could 
not a large part of these benefits have been secured to Ire- 
land, remaining as she was ? Were they, in any sense, 
dependent on the sacrifice of her separate parliament.' 
For my part, I believe that Mr. Pitt's motive for insisting 
on a legislative union was, in a small proportion, perhaps, 
the somewhat elevated desire to connect his own name with 
the historical changes of the empire ; to have it stamped, 
not on events so fugitive as those of war and peace, liable 
to oblivion or eclipse, but on the permanent relations of its 
integral parts. In a still larger proportion I believe his 
motive to have been one of pure convenience, the wish to 
exonerate himself from the intolerable vexation of a double 
parliament. In a government such as ours, so care-laden 
at any rate, it is certainly most harassing to have the task 
of soliciting a measure by management and influence twice 
uver — two trials to organize, two storms of anxiety to 



DUBLIN. 253 

face, and two refractory gangs to discipline, instead of one. 
It must also be conceded that no treasury influence could 
always avail to prevent injurious collisions between acts of 
the Irish and the British Parliaments. In Dublin, as in 
London, the government must lay its account with being 
occasionally outvoted ; this would be likely to happen pecu- 
liarly upon Irish questions. And acts of favor or pro- 
tection would at times pass on behalf of Irish interests, 
not only clashing with more general ones of the central 
government, but indirectly also (through the virtual con- 
solidation of the two islands since the era of steam) opening 
endless means for evading British acts, even within their 
own separate sphere of operation. On these considerations, 
even an Irishman must grant that public convenience called 
for the absorption of all local or provincial supremacies 
into the central supremacy. And there were two brief 
arguments which gave weight to those considerations : First, 
that the evils likely to arise (and which in France have 
arisen) from what is termed, in modern politics, the prin- 
ciple of centralization^ have been for us either evaded or 
neutralized. The provinces, to the very farthest nook of 
these " nook-shotten " islands, react upon London as power- 
fully as London acts upon them ; so that no counterpoise is re- 
quired with us, as in France it is, to any inordinate influ- 
ence at the centre. Secondly, the very pride and jealousy 
which could avail to dictate the retention of an independent 
parliament would effectually preclude any modern •' Poy- 
ning's Act," having for its object to prevent the collision of 
the local with the central government. Each would be 
supreme within its own sphere, and those spheres could not 
but clasli. The separate Irish Parliament was originally no 
badge of honor or independence : it began in motives of 
convenience, or perhaps necessity, at a period when the 
communication was difficult, slow, and interrupted. Any 



254 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

parliament, which arose on that footing, it was possible to 
guard by a Poyning's Act, making, in effect, all laws null 
which should happen to contradict the supreme or central 
will. But what law, in a corresponding temper, could 
avail to limit the jurisdiction of a parliament which con- 
fessedly had been retained on a principle of national hon- 
or ? Upon every consideration, therefore, of convenience, 
and were it only for the necessities of public business, the 
absorption of the local into the central parliament had now 
come to speak a language that perhaps could no longer be 
evaded ; and that Irishman only could consistently oppose 
the measure who should take his stand upon principles 
transcending convenience ; looking, in fact, singly to the 
honor and dignity of a country which it was annually be- 
coming less absurd to suppose capable of an independent 
existence. 

Meantime, in those days, Ireland had no adequate cham- 
pion ; the Hoods and the Grattans were not up to the mark. 
Refractory as they were, they moved within the paling of 
order and decorum ; they were not the Titans for a war 
against the heavens. When the public feeling beckoned 
and loudly supported them, they could follow a lead which 
they appeared to head ; but they could not create such a 
body of public feeling, nor, when created, could they throw 
it into a suitable organization. What they could do, was 
simply as ministerial agents and rhetoricians to prosecute 
any general movement, when the national arm had cloven 
a channel and opened the road before them. Consequently, 
that great opening for a turbulent son of thunder passed 
unimproved ; and the great day drew near without symp- 
toms of tempest. At last it arrived ; and I remember 
nothing which indicated as much ill temper in the public 
mind as I have seen on many hundreds of occasions, trivial 
by comparison, in London. Lord Westport and I were 



DUBLIN. 255 

determined to lose no part of the scene, and we went down 
with Lord Altamont to the house. It was about the 
middle of the day, and a great mob filled the whole space 
about the two houses. As Lord Altamont's coach drew up 
to the steps of that splendid edifice, we heard a prodigious 
hissing and hooting ; and I was really agitated to think that 
Lord Altamont, whom I loved and respected, would probably 
have to make his way through a tempest of public wrath 
— a situation more terrific to him than to others, from his 
embarrassed walking. I found, however, that I might 
have spared my anxiety ; the subject of commotion was, 
simply, that Major Sirr, or Major Swan, I forget which, 
(both being celebrated in those days for their energy, as 
leaders of the police,) had detected a person in the act of 
mistaking some other man's pocket handkerchief for his 
own — a most natural mistake, 1 should fancy, where people 
stood crowded together so thickly. No storm of any kind 
awaited us, and yet at that moment there was no other 
arrival to divide the public attention ; for, in order that we 
might see every thing from first to last, we were amongst 
the very earliest parties. Neither did our party escape 
under any mistake of the crowd : silence had succeeded to 
the uproar caused by the tender meeting between the thief 
and the major ; and a man, who stood in a conspicuous 
situation, proclaimed aloud to those below him, the name 
or title of members as they drove up. " That," said he, 
" is the Earl of Altamont ; the lame gentleman, I mean." 
Perhaps, however, his knowledge did not extend so far as 
to the politics of a nobleman who had taken no violent or 
factious part in public affairs. At least, the dreaded in- 
sults did not follow, or only in the very feeblest manifesta- 
tions. We entered ; and, byway of seeing every thing, we 
went even to the robing room. The man who presented 
his robes to Lord Altamont seemed to me, of all whom I 



256 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

saw on that day, the one who wore the face of deepest de- 
pression. But whether this indicated the loss of a lucra- 
tive situation, or was really disinterested sorrow, growing 
out of a patriotic trouble, at the knowledge that he was 
now officiating for the last time, I could not guess. The 
House of Lords, decorated (if I remember) with hangings, 
representing the battle of the Boyne, was nearly empty 
when we entered — an accident which furnished to Lord 
Altamont the opportunity required for explaining to us the 
whole course and ceremonial of public business on ordinary 
occasions. 

Gradually the house filled ; beautiful women sat inter- 
mingled amongst the peers ; and, in one party of these, sur- 
rounded by a bevy of admirers, we saw our fair but frail 
enchantress of the packet. She, on her part, saw and re- 
cognized us by an afiable nod ; no stain upon her check, in- 
dicating that she suspected to what extent she was indebted 
to our discretion ; for it is a proof of the unaffected sorrow 
and the solemn awe which oppressed us both, that we had 
not mentioned even to Lord Altamont, nor ever did men- 
tion, the scene which chance had revealed to us. Next 
came a stir within the house, and an uproar resounding 
from without, which announced the arrival of his excel- 
lency. Entering the house, he also, like the other peers, 
wheeled round to the throne, and made to that mysterious 
seat a profound homage. Then commenced the public 
business, in which, if I recollect, the chancellor played the 
most conspicuous part — that chancellor (Lord Clare) of 
whom it was affirmed in those days, by a political oppo- 
nent, that he might swim in the innocent blood which he 
had caused to be shed. But nautical men, I suspect, would 
have demurred to that estimate. Then were summoned to 
the bar — summoned for the last time — the gentlemen of 
the House of Commons ; in the van of whom, and drawing 



DUBLIN. 257 

all eyes upon himself, stood Lord Castlereagh. Then 
came the recitation of many acts passed during the session, 
and the sounding ratification, the Jovian 

" Annuit, et nutu totum tremefecit Olympum," 

contained in the Soit fait covime il est desire^ or the more 
peremptory Le roi le veut. At which point in the order 
of succession came the royal assent to the union bill I 
cannot distinctly recollect. But one thing \-do recollect — 
that no audible expression, no buzz, nor murmur, nor su- 
surrus even, testified the feelings which, doubtless, lay 
rankling in many bosoms. Setting apart all public or pa- 
triotic considerations, even then I said to myself, as I sur- 
veyed the whole assemblage of ermined peers, " How is it, 
and by what unaccountable magic, that William Pitt can 
have prevailed on all these hereditary legislators and heads 
of patrician houses to renounce so easily, with nothing 
worth the name of a struggle, and no reward worth the 
name of an indemnification, the very brightest jewel in 
their coronets ? This morning they all rose from their 
couches peers of Parliament, individual pillars of the realm, 
indispensable parties to every law that could pass. To- 
morrow they will be nobody — men of straw — term jiUi, 
What madness has persuaded them to part with their birth- 
right, and to cashier themselves and their children forever 
into mere titular lords ? As to the commoners at the bar, 
their case was different: they had no life estate at all 
events in their honors ; and they might have the same 
chance for entering the imperial Parliament amongst the 
hundred Irish members as for reentering a native parlia- 
ment. Neither, again, amongst the peers was the case 
always equal. Several of the higher had English titles, 
which would, at any rate, open the central Parliament to 
their ambition. That privilege, in particular, attached to 
17 



258 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Lord Altamont.* And he, in any case, fi'om his large 
prope.-ty, was tolerably sure of finding his way thither (as 
in fact for the rest of his life he did) amongst the twenty- 
eight representative peers. The wonder was in the case 
of petty and obscure lords, who had no weight personally, 
and none in right of their estates. Of these men, as they 
were notoriously not enriched by Mr. Pitt, as the distribu- 
tion of honors was not very large, and as no honor could 
countervail the one they lost, I could not, and cannot, 
fathom the policy. Thus much I am sure of — that, had 
such a measure been proposed by a political speculator 
previously to Queen Anne's reign, he would have been 
scouted as a dreamer and a visionary, who calculated upon 
men being generally somewhat worse than Esau, viz., giv- 
ing up their birthrights, and ^dWioiU the mess of pottage. 
However, on this memorable day, thus it was the union 
was ratified ; the bill received the royal assent without a 
muttering, or a whispering, or the protesting echo of a sigh. 
Perhaps there might be a little pause — a silence like that 
which follows an earthquake ; but there was no plain-spoken 
Lord Belhaven, as on the corresponding occasion in Edin- 
burgh, to fill up the silence with " So, there's an end of an 
auld sang ! " All was, or looked courtly, and free from 
vulgar emotion. One person only I remarked whose fea- 
tures were suddenly illuminated by a smile, a sarcastic 
smile, as I read it ; which, however, might be all a fancy. 
It was Lord Castlereagh, who, at the moment when the ir- 
revocable words were pronounced, looked with a penetrat- 
ing glance amongst a party of ladies. His own wife was 
one of that party ; but T did not discover the particular ob- 
ject on whom his smile had settled. After this I had no 



* According to my remembrance, he was Baron JTounteagle in the 
English peerage. 



DUBLIN. 259 

leisure to be inten^sted in any thing which followed. " You 
are all," thought I to myself, " a pack of vagabonds hence- 
forward, and interlopers, with actually no more right to be 
here than myself I am an intruder ; so are you." Appar- 
ently they thought so themselves; for, soon after this sol- 
emn fiat of Jove had gone forth, their lordships, having no 
further title to their robes, (for which I could not help wish- 
ing that a party of Jewish old clothes men would at this mo- 
ment have appeared, and made a loud bidding,) made what 
haste they could to lay them aside forever. The house 
dispersed much more rapidly than it had assembled. Ma- 
jor Sirr was found outside, just where we left him, laying 
down the law (as before) about pocket handkerchiefs to old 
and young practitioners ; and all parties adjourned to find 
what consolation they might in the great evening event of 
dinner. 

Thus we were set at liberty from Dublin. Parliaments, 
and installations, and masked balls, with all other sec- 
ondary splendors in celebration of primary splendors, 
reflex glories that reverberated original glories, at length 
had ceased to shine upon the Irish metropolis. The 
" season," as it is called in great cities, was over; unfor- 
tunately the last season that was ever destined to illuminate 
the society or to stimulate the domestic trade of Dublin. 
It began to be thought scandalous to be found in town ; 
nobody, in fact, remained, except some two hundred thou- 
sand people, who never did, nor ever would, wear ermine ; 
and in all Ireland there remained nothing at all to attract, 
except that whic i no king, and no two houses, can by any 
conspiracy abolish, viz., the beauty of her most verdant 
scenery. I speak of that part which chiefly it is that I 
know, — the scenery of the west, — Connaught beyond 
other provinces, and in Connaught, Mayo beyond other 
counties. There it was, and in the county next adjoining, 



260 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

that Lord Altamont's large estates were situated, the fam- 
ily mansion and beautiful park being in Mayo. Thither, 
as nothing else now remained to divert us from what, in 
fact, we had thirsted for throughout the heats of summer, 
and throughout the magnificences of the capital, at length 
we set off by movements as slow and circuitous as those 
of any royal progress in the reign of Elizabeth. Making 
but short journeys on each day, and resting always at the 
house of some private friend, I thus obtained an oppor- 
tunity of seeing the old Irish nobility and gentry more 
extensively, and on a more intimate footing, than I had 
hoped for. No experience of this kind, throughout my 
whole life, so much interested me. In a little work, not 
much known, of Suetonius, the most interesting record 
which survives of the early Roman literature, it comes out 
incidentally that many books, many idioms, and verbal 
peculiarities belonging to the primitive ages of Roman cul- 
ture were to be found still lingering in the old Roman 
settlements, both Gaulish and Spanish, long after they had 
become obsolete (and sometimes unintelligible) in Rome. 
From the tardiness and the difficulty of communication, 
the want of newspapers, &c., it followed, naturally enough, 
that the distant provincial towns, though not without their 
own separate literature and their own literary professors, 
were always two or three generations in the rear of the 
metropolis ; and thus it happened, that, about the time of 
Augustus, there were some grammatici in Rome, answer- 
ing to our black-letter critics, who sought the material 
of their researches in Boulogne, (Gessoriacum,) in Aries, 
(^Arelata,) or in Marseilles, (Massilia.) Now, the old 
Irish nobility — that part, I mean, which might be callec 
the rural nobility — stood in the same relation to English 
manners and customs. Here might be found old rambling 
houses in the style of antique English manorial chateaus, 



DITBLIN. 261 

ill planned, perhaps, as regarded convenience and econ- 
omy, with long rambling galleries, and windows innumera- 
ble, that evidently had never looked for that severe audit 
to which they were afterwards summoned by William 
Pitt ; but displaying, in the dwelling rooms, a comfort and 
" cosiness," combined with magnificence, not always so 
effectually attained in modern times. Here were old 
libraries, old butlers, and old customs, that seemed all 
alike to belong to the era of Cromwell, or even an earlier 
era than his ; whilst the ancient names, to one who had 
some acquaintance with the great events of Irish history, 
often strengthened the illusion. Not that I could pretend 
to be familiar with Irish history as Irish ; but as a conspic- 
uous chapter in the difficult policy of Queen Elizabeth, of 
Charles I., and of Cromwell, nobody who had read the 
English history could be a stranger to the O'Neils, the 
O'Donnells, the Ormonds, {i. e., the Butlers,) the Inchiquins, 
or the De Burghs, and many scores beside. I soon found, 
m fact, that the aristocracy of Ireland might be divided 
into two great sections : the native Irish — territorial fix- 
tures, so powerfully described by Maturin ; and those, on 
the other hand, who spent so much of their time and rev- 
enues at Bath, Cheltenham, Weymouth, London, &c., as 
to have become almost entirely English. It was the 
former whom we chiefly visited ; and I remarked that, in 
the midst of hospitality the most unbounded, and the 
amplest comfort, some of these were conspicuously in the 
rear of the English commercial gentry, as to modern re- 
finements of luxury. There was at the same time an 
apparent strength of character, as if formed amidst turbu- 
lent scenes, and a raciness of manner, which were fitted to 
interest a stranger profoundly, and to impress themselves 
on his recollection. 



CHAPTER IX. 

FIRST REBELLION. 

In our road to Mayo, we were often upon ground ren- 
dered memorable, not only by historical events, but more 
recently by the disastrous scenes of the rebellion, by its 
horrors or its calamities. On reaching Westport House, 
we found ourselves 'in situations and a neighborhood which 
had become the very centre of the final military opera- 
tions, those which succeeded to the main rebellion ; and 
which, to the people of England, and still more to the 
people of the continent, had offered a character of interest 
wanting to the inartificial movements of Father Roche and 
Bagenal Harvey. 

In the year 1798, there were two great popular insur- 
rections in Ireland. It is usual to talk of the Irish 
rebellion, as though there had been one rebellion and no 
more ; but it must satisfy the reader of the inaccuracy 
pervading the common reports of this period, when he 
hears that there were two separate rebellions, separate 
in time, separate in space, separate by the character of 
their events, and separate even as regarded their proxi- 
mate causes. The first of these arose in the vernal part 
of summer, and wasted its fury upon the county of Wex- 
ford, in the centre of the kingdom. The second arose in 

262 



FIRST REBELLION. 263 

the autumn, and was confined entirely to the western prov 
ince of Connaught. Each, resting (it is true) upon causes 
ultimately the same, had yet its own separate occasions 
and excitements ; for the first arose upon a premature ex- 
plosion from a secret society of most subtle organization ; 
and the second upon the encouragement of a French in- 
vasion. And each of these insurrections had its own 
separate leaders and its own local agents. The first, 
though precipitated into action by fortunate discoveries 
on the part of the government, had been anxiously pre- 
concerted for three years. The second was an unpre- 
meditated effort, called forth by a most ill-timed, and also 
ill-concerted, foreign invasion. The general predisposing 
causes to rebellion were doubtless the same in both cases ; 
but the exciting causes of the moment were different in 
each. And, finally, they were divided by a complete in- 
terval of two months. 

One very remarkable feature there was, however, in 
which these two separate rebellions of 1798 coincided ; 
and that was, the narrow range, as to time, within which 
each ran its course. Neither of them outran the limits of 
one lunar month. It is a fact, however startling, that each, 
though a perfect civil war in all its proportions, frequent 
in warlike incident, and the former rich in tragedy, passed 
through all the stages of growth, maturity, and final ex- 
tinction within one single revolution of the moon. For 
all the rebel movements, subsequent to the morning of 
Vinegar Hill, are to be viewed not at all in the light of 
manoeuvres made in the spirit of military hope, but in the 
light of final struggles for self-preservation made in the. 
spirit of absolute despair, as regarded the original pur- 
poses of the war, or, indeed, as regarded any purposes 
whatever beyond that of instant safety. The solitary 
object contemplated was, to reach some district lonely 



264 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

enough, and with elbow room enough, for quiet, unmolested 
dispersion. 

A few pages will recapitulate these two civil wars. I 
begin with the first. The war of American separation 
touched and quickened the dry bones that lay waiting as 
it were for life through the west of Christendom. The 
year 1782 brought that war to its winding up ; and the 
same year it was that called forth Grattan and the Irish 
volunteers. These volunteers came forward as allies of 
England against French and Spanish invasion ; but once 
embattled, what should hinder them from detecting a flaw 
in their commission, and reading it as valid against Eng- 
land herself? In that sense they did read it. That Ire- 
land had seen he*, own case dimly reflected in that of 
America, and that such a reference was stirring through 
the national mind, appears from a remarkable fact in the 
history of the year which followed. In 1783, a haughty 
petition was addressed to the throne, on behalf of the Ro- 
man Catholics, by an association that arrogated to itself 
the style and title of a congress. No man could suppose 
that a designation so ominously significant had been chosen 
by accident ; and by the English government it was re- 
ceived, as it was meant, for an insult and a menace. 
What came next ? The French revolution. All flesh 
moved under that inspiration. Fast and rank now began 
to germinate the seed sown for the ten years preceding in 
Ireland ; too fast and too rankly for the policy that suited 
her situation. Concealment or delay, compromise or tem- 
porizing, would not have been brooked, at this moment, by 
the fiery temperament of Ireland, had it not been through 
the extraordinary composition of that secret society into 
which the management of her aflTairs now began to de- 
volve. In the year 1792, as we are told, commenced, and 
in 1795 was finished, the famous association of United 



FIRST REBELLION. 265 

Irishmen. By these terms, commenced and friished, we are 
to understand, not the purposes or the arrangements of 
their conspiracy against the existing government, but that 
network of organization, deb'cate as lace for ladies, and 
strong as the harness of artillery horses, which now en- 
meshed almost every province of Ireland, knitting the 
strength of her peasantry into unity and disposable di- 
visions. This, it seems, was completed in 1795. In a 
complete histoiy of these times, no one chapter would de- 
serve so ample an investigation as this subtile web of asso- 
ciation, rising upon a large base, expanding in proportion 
to the extent of the particular county, and by intermediate 
links ascending to some unknown apex ; all so graduated, 
and in such nice interdependency, as to secure the instan- 
taneous propagation upwards and downwards, laterally or 
obliquely, of any impulse whatever ; and yet so effectually 
shrouded, that nobody knew more than the two or three 
individual agents in immediate juxtaposition with himself, 
by whom he communicated with those above his head or 
below his feet. This organization, in fact, of the United 
Irishmen, combined the best features, as to skill, of the 
two most elaborate and most successful of all secret soci- 
eties recorded in history ; one of which went before the 
Irish Society by centuries, and one followed it after an in- 
terval of five-and-twenty years. These two are the Fehm- 
Gericht, or court of ban and extermination, which, having 
taken its rise in Westphalia, is usually called the secret Tri- 
bunal of Westphalia, and which reached its full development 
in the fourteenth century. The other is the Hellenistic 
Hetaeria, {'ETaiQLa)—^ society which, passing for one of 
pure literary dilettanti, under the secret countenance of 
the late Capo d'Istria, (then a confidential minister of the 
czar,) did actually succeed so far in hoaxing the cabinets 
of Europe, that one third of European kings put down 



266 AUTOBIOGRiirHIC SKETCHES. 

their names, and gave their aid, as conspirators against the 
Sultan of Turkey, whilst credulously supposing themselves 
honorary correspondents of a learned body for reviving 
the arts and literature of Athens. These two I call the 
most successful of all secret societies, because both were 
arrayed against the existing administrations throughout the 
entire lands upon which they sought to operate. The 
German society disowned the legal authorities as too weak 
for the ends of justice, and succeeded in bringing the cog- 
nizance of crimes within its own secret yet consecrated 
usurpation. The Grecian society made the existing pow- 
ers the final object of its hostility ; lived unarmed amongst 
the very oppressors whose throats it had dedicated to the 
sabre ; and, in a very few years, saw its purpose accom- 
plished. 

The society of United Irishmen combined the best parts 
in the organization of both these secret fraternities, and 
obtained their advantages. The society prospered in defi- 
ance of the government ; nor would the government, though 
armed with all the powers of the Dublin police and of state 
thunder, have succeeded in mastering this society, but, on 
the contrary, the society would assuredly have surprised 
and mastered the government, had it not been undermined 
by the perfidy of a confidential brother. One instrument 
for dispersing knowledge, employed by the United Irish- 
men, is worth mentioning, as it is applicable to any cause, 
and may be used with much greater effect in an age when 
every body is taught to read. They printed newspapers on 
a single side of the sheet, which were thus fitted for being 
placarded against the walls. This expedient had probably 
been suggested by Paris, where such newspapers were often 
placarded, and generally for the bloodiest purposes. But 
Louvet, in his " Memoirs," mentions one conducted by 
himself on better principles : it was printed at the public 



FIRST REBELLION. 267 

expense ; and sometimes mere than twenty thousand copies 
of a single number were attached to the corners of streets. 
This was called the " Centinel ; " and those who arc ac- 
quainted with the " Memoirs of Madame Roland " will re- 
member that she cites Louvet's paper as a model for all of its 
class. The " Union Star " was the paper which the United 
Irishmen published upon this plan ; previous papers, on the 
ordinary plan, viz., the " Northern Star" and the " Press," 
having been violently put down by the government. The 
"Union Star," however, it must be acknowledged, did not 
seek much to elevate the people by addressing them through 
their understandings ; it was merely a violent appeal to 
their passions, and directed against all who had incurred 
the displeasure of the society. Newspapers, meantime, of 
every kind, it was easy for the government to suppress. 
But the secret society annoyed and crippled the govern- 
ment in other modes, which it was not easy to parry ; and 
all blows dealt in return were dealt in the dark, and aimed 
at a shadow. The society called upon Irishmen to abstain 
generally from ardent spirits, as a means of destroying the 
excise ; and it is certain that the society was obeyed, in a 
degree which astonished neutral observers, all over Ireland. 
The same society, by a printed proclamation, called upon 
the people not to purchase the quitrents of the crown, which 
were then on sale ; and not to receive bank notes in pay- 
ment, because (as the proclamation told them) a " burst " 
was coming, when such paper, and the securities for such 
purchases, would fall to a ruinous discount. In this case, 
after much distress to the public service, government ob- 
tained a partial triumph by the law which cancelled the 
debt on a refusal to receive the state paper, and which 
quartered soldiers upon all tradesmen who demurred to 
such a tender. But, upon the whole, jt was becoming pain- 
fully evident, that in Ireland there were two coordinate 



268 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

governments coming into collision at every step, and that 
the one which more generally had the upper hand in the 
struggle was the secret society of United Irishmen ; whose 
members individually, and whose local head quarters, were 
alike screened from the attacks of its rival, viz., the state 
government at the Castle, by a cloud of impenetrable 
darkness. 

That cloud was at last pierced. A treacherous or weak 
brother, high in the ranks of the society, and deep in their 
confidence, happened, when travelling up to Dublin in com- 
pany with a royalist, to speak half mysteriously, half 
ostentatiously, upon the delicate position which he held in 
the councils of his dangerous party. This weak man, 
Thomas Reynolds, a Roman Catholic gentleman, of Kilkea 
Castle, in Kildare, colonel of a regiment of United Irish, 
treasurer for Kildare, and in other offices of trust for the 
secret society, was prevailed on by Mr. William Cope, a 
rich merchant of Dublin, who alarmed his mind by pictures 
of the horrors attending a revolution under the circum- 
stances of Ireland, to betray all he knew to the government. 
His treachery was first meditated in the last week of Feb- 
ruary, 1798 ; and, in consequence of his depositions, on 
March 12, at the house of Oliver Bond, in Dublin, the 
government succeeded in arresting a large body of the lead- 
ing conspirators. The whole committee of Leinster, amount- 
ing to thirteen members, was captured on this occasion ; but 
a still more valuable prize was made in the persons of those 
who presided over the Irish Directory, viz., Emmet, M'Ni- 
ven, Arthur O'Connor, and Oliver Bond. As far as names 
went, their places were immediately filled up ; and a hand- 
bill was issued, on the same day, with the purpose of in- 
tercepting the effects of despondency amongst the great 
body of the conspirators. But Emmet and O'Connor were 
not men to be effectually replaced : government had struck 



FIRST REBELLION. 269 

a fatal blow, without being fully aware at first of their own 
good luck On the 19th of May following, i„ eonsequZ 
of a proclamation (May 11) offering a thousand pounds 
frhts capture Lord Edward Fitzgerald was apprehended 
a ue house of Mr. Nicholas Murphy, a merchant in Dub- 
n, but after a very desperate resistance. The leader of 

ttl'rr/ h""' ^''''" ^^™"' " °""'" '"^S'^*-'«. di- 
tu,gu,shed tor h,s energy, was wounded by Lord Edward • 

and Ryan, one of the officers, so desperately, that he died 
wuhm a fortnight. Lord Edward himself Lguished I 
ome t,me,and died in great agony on the 3d of June 
ft-om a p,stol shot which took effect on his shbulder. Lord 
Edward F,tzgerald might be regarded as an injured man 
F om the exuberant generosity of his temper, he had power- 
ful y sympathized wuh the French republicans at an 
early stage of their revolution ; and haWng, with grea" 
md,scret,on, but an indiscretion that admiuld of some 
pa ,at,on m so young a man and of so ardent a tempeZ 
ment pubhcly avowed his sympathy, he was ignomini- 
ou^y dismissed from the army. That act made an enel 
of one who, on several grounds, was not a man to be de^ 
sp.sed ; for, though weak as respected his powers of self- 
control Lord Edward was well qualified to make him e 
beloved : he had considerable talents ; his very name Is a 
son onhe only* ducal house in Ireland, wafa spel' and 

and, ftnully by his marriage with a natural daughter of the 

l^n Duke of Orleans, he had founded some important c „ 

necfons and openings to secret influence in France. The 

TllITt 2. *'""""""•" T^"^' ''• "'^ ""'y »■"= -0' --oval. 

to the Fife-mfd ' '"""' """* Sives the title of duke 



270 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

young lady whom he had married was generally known by 
the name of Pamela ; and it has been usually supposed 
that she is the person described by Miss Edgeworth, under 
the name of Virginia, in the latter part of her " Belinda." 
How that may be, I cannot pretend to say : Pamela was 
certainly led into some indiscretions ; in particular, she was 
said to have gone to a ball without shoes or stockings, which 
seems to argue the same sort of ignorance, and the same 
docility to any chance impressions, which characterize the 
Virginia of Miss Edgeworth. She was a reputed daughter 
(as I have said) of Philippe Egalite ; and her putative 
mother was Madame de Genlis, who had been setded in 
that prince's family, as governess to his children, more es- 
pecially to the sister of the present * French king. Lord 
Edward's whole course had been marked by generosity and 
noble feeling. Far better to have pardoned f such a man, 
and (if that were possible) to have conciliated his support ; 



=* ''Present French king." — Viz., in the year 1833. 

t " To have pardoned, ^^ &,c. — This was written under circumstances 
of great hurry ; and, were it not for that palliation, would be inex- 
cusably thoughtless. For, in a double sense, it is doubtful how far the 
government could have pardoned Lord Edward. First, in a pru- 
dential sense, was it possible (except in the spirit of a German senti- 
mentalizing drama) to pardon a conspicuous, and within certain 
limits a very influential, officer for publicly aA'owing opinions tending 
to treason, and at war with the constitutional system of the land which 
fed him and which claimed his allegiance ? Was it possible, in point 
of prudence or in point of dignity, to overlook such anti-national sen- 
timents, whilst neither disavowed nor ever likely to be disavowed ? 
Was this possible, regard being had to the inevitable effect of such 
unearned forgiveness upon the army at large ? But secondly, in a 
merely logical sense of practical self-consistency, would it have been 
rational or even intelligible to pardon a man who probably would not 
be pardoned ; that is, who must (consenting or not consenting) benefit 
by the concessions of the pardon, whilst disowning all reciprocal 
obligations "? 



FIRST REBELLION. 271 

but, says a contemporary Irishman, " those were not times 
of concih'ation." 

Some days after this event were arrested the two broth- 
ers named Shearer, men of talent, who eventually suffered 
for treason. These discoveries were due to treachery of a 
peculiar sort ; not to the treachery of an apostate brother 
breaking his faith, but of a counterfeit brother simulating 
the character of conspirator, and by that fraud obtaining a 
key to the fatal secrets of the United Irishmen. His per- 
fidy, therefore, consisted, not in any betrayal of secrets, 
but in the fraud by which he obtained them. Government, 
without having yet penetrated to the very heart of the 
mystery, had now discovered enough to guide them in their 
most energetic precautions; and the result was, that the 
conspirators, whose policy had hitherto been to wait for the 
cooperation of a French army, now suddenly began to dis- 
trust that policy : their fear was, that the ground would be 
cut from beneath their feet if they waited any longer. More 
was evidently risked by delay than by dispensing altogether 
with foreign aid. To forego this aid was perilous ; to wait 
for it was ruin. It was resolved, therefore, to commence 
the insurrection on the 23d of May ; and, in order to dis- 
tract the government, to commence it by simultaneous as- 
saults upon all the military posts in the neighborhood of 
Dublin. This plan was discovered, but scarcely in time to 
prevent the effects of a surprise. On the 21st, late in the 
evening, the conspiracy had been announced by the lord 
lieutenant's secretary to the lord mayor ; and, on the fol- 
lowing day, by a message from his excellency to both 
Houses of Parliament. 

The insurrection, however, in spite of this official warn- 
ing, began at the appointed hour. The skirmishes were 
many, and in many places ; but, generally speaking, they 
were not favorable in their results to the insurgents. The 



272 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

mail coaches, agreeably to the preconcerted plan, had all 
been intercepted ; their non-arrival being every where un- 
derstood by the conspirators as a silent signal that the war 
hud commenced. Yet this summons to the more distant 
provinces, though truly interpreted, had not been truly 
answered. The communication between the capital and 
the interior, almost completely interrupted at first, had been 
at length fully restored ; and a few days saw the main 
strength (as it was supposed) of the insurrection suppressec 
without much bloodshed. But hush ! what is that in the 
rear ? 

Just at this moment, when all the world was disposed to 
think the whole affair quietly composed, the flame burst 
out with tenfold fuiy in a part of the country from which 
government, with some reason, had turned away their anx- 
ieties and their preparations. This was the county of Wex- 
ford, which the Earl of Mountnorris had described to the 
government as so entirely well affected to the loyal cause, 
that he had personally pledged himself for its good conduct. 
On the night before Whitsunday, however, May 27, the 
standard of revolt was there raised by John Murphy, a 
Catholic priest, well known henceforwards under the title 
of Father Murphy. 

The campaign opened inauspiciously for the royalists. 
The rebels had posted themselves on two eminences — 
Kilthomas, about ten miles to the westward of Gorey ; and 
the Hill of Oulart, half way {i. e., about a dozen miles) be- 
tween Gorey and Wexford. They were attacked at each 
point on Whitsunday. From the first point they were 
driven easily, and with considerable loss ; but at Oulart the 
issue was very different. Father Murphy commanded here 
in person ; and, finding that his men gave way in great 
confusion before a picked body of the North Cork militia, 
under the command of Colonel Foote, he contrived to 



FIRST REBELLION. 273 

persuade them that their flight was leading them right upon 
a body of royal cavahy posted to intercept their retreat. 
This fear effectually halted them. The insurgents, through 
a prejudice natural to inexperience, had an unreasonable 
dread of cavalry. A second time, therefore, facing about 
to retreat from this imaginary body of horse, they came 
of necessity, and without design, full upon their pursuers, 
whom unhappily the intoxication of victory had by this 
time brought into the most careless disarray. These, al- 
most to a man, the rebels annihilated : universal consterna- 
tion followed amongst the royalists ; Father Murphy led 
them to Ferns, and thence to the attack of Enniscorthy. 

Has the reader witnessed, or has he heard described, the 
sudden burst — the explosion, one might say — by which a 
Swedish winter passes into spring, and spring simultane- 
ously into summer ? The icy sceptre of winter does not 
there thaw and melt away by just gradations ; it is broken, 
it is shattered, in a day, in an hour, and with a violence 
brought home to every sense. No second type of resurrec- 
tion, so mighty or so affecting, is manifested by nature in 
southern climates. Such is the headlong tumult, such 
" the torrent rapture," by which life is let loose amongst 
the air, the earth, and the waters under the earth.' Ex- 
actly what this vernal resurrection is in manifestations of 
power and life, by comparison with climates that have no 
winter, such, and marked with features as distinct, was 
this Irish insurrection, when suddenly surrendered to the 
whole contagion of politico-religious fanaticism, by com- 
parison with vulgar martinet strategics and the pedantry 
of technical warfare. What a picture must Enniscorthy 
have presented on the 27th of May ! Fugitives, crowding 
in from Ferns, announced the rapid advance of the rebels, 
now, at least, 7000 strong, drunk with victory, and mad- 
dened with vindictive fury. Not long after midday, their 
18 



274 ArTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

advanced guard, well armed with muskets, (pillaged, be il 
observed, from royal magazines hastily deserted,) com- 
menced a tumultuous assault. Less than 300 militia and 
yeomanry formed the garrison of the place, which had no 
sort of defences except the natural one of the River Slaney. 
This, however, was fordable, and that the assailants knew. 
The slaughter amongst the rebels, meantime, from the little 
caution they exhibited, and their total defect of military 
skill, was murderous. Spite of their immense numerical 
advantages, it is probable they would have been defeated. 
But in Enniscorthy, (as where not ?) treason from within 
was emboldened to raise its crest at the very crisis of sus- 
pense ; incendiaries were at work ; and flames began to 
issue from many houses at once. Retreat itself became 
suddenly doubtful, depending, as it did, altogether upon 
the state of the wind. At the right hand of every royalist 
stood a traitor; in his own house oftentimes lurked other 
traitors, waiting for the signal to begin ; in the front was 
the enemy ; in the rear was a line of blazing streets. 
Three hours the battle had raged ; it was now four, P. M., 
and at this moment the garrison hastily gave way, and fled 
to Wexford. 

Nojw came a scene, which swallowed up all distinct or 
separate features in its frantic confluence of horrors. All 
the loyalists of Enniscorthy, all the gentry for miles around, 
who had congregated in that town, as a centre of security, 
were summoned at that moment, not to an orderly retreat, 
but to instant flight. At one end of the street were seen 
the rebel pikes, and bayonets, and fierce faces, already 
gleaming through the smoke ; at the other end, volumes of 
fire, surging and billowing from the thatched roofs and 
blazing rafters, beginning to block up the avenues of escape. 
Then began the agony and uttermost conflict of what is 
worst and what is best in human nature. Then was to be 



FIRST REBELLION. 275 

seen the very delirium of fear, and the very delirium of 
vindictive malice ; private and ignoble hatred, of ancient 
origin, siirouding itself in the mask of patriotic wrath ; the 
tiger glare of just vengeance, fresh from intolerable wrongs 
and the never-to-be-forgotten ignominy of stripes and per- 
sonal degradation ; panic, self-palsied by its own excess ; 
flight, eager or stealthy, according to the temper and the 
means ; volleying pursuit ; the very frenzy of agitation, 
under every mode of excitement ; and here and there, 
towering aloft, the desperation of maternal love, victorious 
and supreme above all lower passions. I recapitulate and 
gather under general abstractions many an individual anec- 
dote, reported by those who were on that day present in 
Enniscorthy ; for at Ferns, not far off, and deeply interested 
in all those transactions, 1 had private friends, intimate 
participators in the trials of that fierce hurricane, and joint 
sufferers with those who suffered most. Ladies were then 
seen in crowds, hurrying on foot to Wexford, the nearest 
asylum, though fourteen miles distant, many in slippers, 
bareheaded, and without any supporting arm ; for the 
flight of their defenders, having been determined by a 
sudden angular movement of the assailants, coinciding with 
the failure of their own ammunition, had left no time for 
warning ; and fortunate it was for the unhappy fugitives, 
that the confusion of burning streets, concurring with the 
seductions of pillage, drew aside so many of the victors as 
to break the unity of a pursuit else hellishly unrelenting. 

Wexford, meantime, was in no condition to promise more 
than a momentary shelter. Orders had been already issued 
to extinguish all domestic fires throughout the town, and to 
unroof all the thatched houses ; so great was the jealousy 
of internal treason. From without, also, the alarm was 
every hour increasing. On Tuesday, the 29th of May, the 
rebel army advanced from Enniscorthy to a post called 



276 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Three Roclcs, not much above two miles from Wexford 
Their strength was now increased to at least 15,000 men. 
Never was there a case requiring more energy in the dis- 
posers of the royal forces ; never one which met with less, 
even in the most responsible quarters. The nearest military 
station was the fort at Duncannon, twenty-three miles 
distant. Thither, on the 29th, an express had been de- 
spatched by the mayor of Wexford, reporting their situation, 
and calling immediate aid. General Fawcet replied, that 
he would himself march that same evening with the 13th 
regiment, part of the Meath militia, and sufficient artillery. 
Relying upon these assurances, the small parties of militia 
and yeomanry then in Wexford gallantly threw themselves 
upon the most trying services in advance. Some companies 
of the Donegal militia, not mustering above 200 men, 
marched immediately to a position between the rebel camp 
and Wexford ; whilst others of the North Cork militia and 
the local yeomanry, with equal cheerfulness, undertook the 
defence of that town. Meantime, General Fawcet had 
consulted his personal comfort by halting for the night, 
though aware of the dreadful emergency, at a station sixteen 
miles short of Wexford. A small detachment, however, 
with part of his artillery, he sent forward ; these were the 
next morning intercepted by the rebels at Three Rocks, 
and massacred almost to a man. Two officers, who escaped 
the slaughter, carried the intelligence to the advanced post 
of the Donegals ; but they, so far from being disheartened, 
marched immediately against the rebel army, enormous as 
was the disproportion, with the purpose of recapturing the 
artillery. A singular contrast this to the conduct of General 
Fawcet, who retreated hastily to Duncannon upon the first 
intelligence of this disaster. Such a regressive movement 
was so little anticipated by the gallant Donegals, that they 
continued to advance against the enemy, until the precision 



FIRST REBELLION. 277 

with which the captured artillery was served against them- 
selves, and the non-appearance of the promised aid, 
warned them to retire. At Wexford, they found all 'n 
confusion and the hurry of retreat. The flight, as it n.ay 
be called, of General Fawcet was now confirmed ; and, as 
the local position of Wexford made it indefensible against 
artillery, the whole body of loyalists, except those whom 
insufficient warning had thrown into the rear, now fled 
from the wrath of the rebels to Duncannon. It is a 
shocking illustration {if truly reported) of the thoughtless 
ferocity which characterized too many of the Orange troops, 
that, along the whole line of this retreat, they continued to 
burn the cabins of Roman Catholics, and often to massacre, 
in cold blood, the unoffending inhabitants ; totally forgetful 
of the many hostages whom the insurgents now held in 
their power, and careless of the dreadful provocations which 
they were thus throwing out to the bloodiest reprisals. 

Thus it was, and through mismanagement thus mis- 
chievously alert, or through torpor thus unaccountably base, 
that actually, on the 30th of May, not having raised their 
standard before the 26th, the rebels had already been per- 
mitted to possess themselves of the county of Wexford in 
its whole southern division — Ross and Duncannon only 
excepted ; of which the latter was not liable to capture by 
coup de main^ and the other was saved by the procrastina- 
tion of the rebels. The northern division of the county 
was overrun pretty much in the same hasty style, and 
through the same desperate neglect in previous concert of 
plans. Upon first turning their views to the north, the rebels 
had taken up a position on the Hill of Corrigrua, as a station 
from which they could march with advantage upon the town 
of Gorey, lying seven miles to the northward. On the 1st 
of June, a truly brilliant affair had taken place between a 
mere handful of militia and yeomanry from this town of 



278 AUTOBIOGKAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Gorey and a strong detachment from the rebel camp. 
Many persons at the time regarded this as the best fough 
action in the whole war. The two parties had met about 
two miles from Gorey ; and it is pretty certain that, if the 
yeoman cavaCry could have been prevailed on to charge at 
the critical moment, the defeat would have been a most 
murderous one to the rebels. As it was, they escaped, 
though with considerable loss of honor. Yet even this they 
were allowed to retrieve within a few days, in a remarkable 
way, and with circumstances of still greater scandal to the 
military discretion in high quarters than had attended the 
movements of General Fawcet in the south. 

On the 4th of June, a little army of 1500 men, under 
the command of Major General Loftus, had assembled at 
Gorey. The plan was, to march by two different roads 
upon the rebel encampment at Corrigrua ; and this plan 
was adopted. Meantime, on that same night, the rebel 
army had put themselves in motion for Gorey ; and of this 
counter movement full and timely information had been 
given by a farmer at the royal head quarters ; but such 
was the obstinate infatuation, that no officer of rank would 
condescend to give him a hearing. The consequences may 
be imagined. Colonel VValpole, an Englishman, full of 
courage, but presumptuously disdainful of the enemy, led 
a division upon one of the two roads, having no scouts, nor 
taking any sort of precaution. Suddenly he found his line 
of march crossed by the enemy in great strength : he re- 
fused to halt or to retire ; was shot through the head ; and 
a great part of the advanced detachment was slaughtered 
on the spot, and his artillery captured. General Loftus, 
advancing on the parallel road, heard the firing, and de- 
tached the grenadier company of the Antrim militia to the 
aid of Waloole. These, to the amount of seventy men, 
were cut off almost to a man ; and when the general, who 



FIRST REBELLION. 279 

could not cross over to the other road, through the enclo- 
sures, from the encumbrance of his artillery, had at length 
reached the scene of action by a long circuit, he found 
himself in the following truly ludicrous position : The 
rebels had pursued Colonel Walpole's division to Gorey, 
and possessed themselves of that place ; the general had 
thus lost his head quarters, without having seen the army 
whom he had suffered to slip past him in the dark. He 
marched back disconsolately to Gorey, took a look at the 
rebel posts which now occupied the town in strength, was 
saluted with a few rounds from his own cannon, and finally 
retreated out of the county. 

This movement of General Loftus, and the previous one 
of General Fawcet, circumstantially illustrate the puerile 
imbecility with which the royal cause was then conducted. 
Both movements foundered in an hour, through surprises, 
against which each had been amply forewarned. Fortu- 
nately for the government, the affairs of the rebels were 
managed even worse. Two sole enterprises were under- 
taken by them after this, previously to the closing battle 
of Vinegar Hill ; both being of the very utmost importance 
to their interests, and both sure of success if they had been 
pushed forward in time. The first was the attack upon 
Ross, undertaken on the 29th of May, the day after the 
capture of Enniscorthy. Had that attack been pressed 
forward without delay, there never were two opinions as to 
the certainty of its success ; and, having succeeded, it 
would have laid open to the rebels the important counties 
of Waterford and Kilkenny. Being delayed until the 5tK 
of June, the assault was repulsed with prodigious slaughter. 
The other was the attack upon Arklow, in the north. On 
the capture of Gorey, on the night of June 4, as the imme- 
diate consequence of Colonel Walpole's defeat, had the reb 
els advanced upon Arklow, they would have found it fo 



280 AUTOBIOGRArHIC SKjITCHES. 

some days totally undefended ; the whole garrison having 
retreated in panic, early on June 5, to Wicklow. The cap- 
ture of this important place would have laid open the whole 
road to the capital ; would probably have caused a rising in 
that great city ; and, in any event, would have indefinitely 
prolonged the war, and multiplied the distractions of gov- 
ernment. Merely from sloth and the spirit of procrastina- 
tion, however, the rebel army halted at Gorey until the 9th, 
and then advanced with what seemed the overpowering 
force of 27,000 men. It is a striking lesson upon the sub- 
ject of procrastination, that, precisely on that morning of 
June 9, the attempt had first become hopeless. Until 
then, the place had been positively emptied of all inhab- 
itants whatsoever. Exactly on the 9th, the old garrison 
had been ordered back from Wicklow, and reenforced by 
a crack English regiment, (the Durham Fencibles,) on 
whom chiefly at this critical hour had devolved the 
defence, which was peculiarly trying, from the vast num- 
bers of the assailants, but brilliant, masterly, and perfectly 
successful. 

This obstinate and fiercely-contested battle of Arklow 
was indeed, by general consent, the hinge on which the 
rebellion turned. Nearly 30,000 men, armed every man 
of them with pikes, and 5000 with muskets, supported 
also by some artillery, sufficiently well served to do con- 
siderable execution at a most important point in the line 
of defence, could not be defeated without a very trying 
struggle. And here, again, it is worthy of record, that 
General Needham, who commanJed on this day, would 
have followed the example of Generals Fawcet and Loftus, 
and have ordered a retreat, had he not been determinately 
opposed by Colonel Skerret, of the Durham regiment. 
Such was the imbecility, and the want of moral courage, 
on the part of the military leaders ; for it would be unjust 



FIRST REBELLION. 281 

to impute any defect in animal courage to the feeblest of 
these leaders. General Needham, for example, exposed 
his person, without reserve, throughout the whole of this 
difficult day. Any amount of cannon shot he could face 
cheerfully, but not a trying responsibility. 

From the defeat of Arklow, the rebels gradually retired, 
between the 9th and the 20th of June, to their main mili- 
tary position of Vinegar Hill, which lies immediately above 
the town of Enniscorthy, and had fallen into their hands, 
concurrently with that place, on the 28th of May. Here 
their whole forces, with the exception of perhaps 6000, 
who attacked General Moore (ten and a half years later, 
the Moore of Corunna) when marching on the 26th 
towards Wexford, had been concentrated ; and to this 
point, therefore, as a focus, had the royal army, 13,000 
strong, with a respectable artillery, under the supreme 
command of General Lake, converged in four separate 
divisions, about the 19th and 20th of June. The great 
bl jw was to be struck on the 21st ; and the plan was, that 
the royal forces, moving to the assault of the rebel position 
upon four lines at right angles to each other, (as if, for 
instance, from the four cardinal points to the same centre,) 
should surround their encampment, and shut up every 
avenue to escape. On this plan, the field of battle would 
have been one vast slaughter house ; for quarter was not 
granted on either side.* But the quadrille, if it were ever 

* " For quarter ivas not granted on either side^ — I repeat, as all 
along and necessarily I have repeated, that Avhich orally I Avas told 
at the time, or which subsequently I have read in published accounts. 
But the reader is aware by this time of my steadfast conviction, 
that more easily might a camel go through the eye of a needle, than 
a reporter, fresh from a campaign blazing with partisanship, and 
that partisanship representing ancient and hereditary feuds, could by 
possibility cleanse himself from the vii-us of such a prejudice. 



282 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

seriously concerted, was entirely defeated by the failure of 
General Needbam, wbo did not present bimself vvitb his 
division unti nine o'clock, a full balf hour after the battle 
was over, and thus earned the sohriquet of the late* Gen- 
eral Needham. Whether the failure were really in this 
officer, or (as was alleged by his apologists) had been 
already preconcerted in the inconsistent orders issued to 
him by General Lake, with the covert intention, as many 
believe, of mercifully counteracting his own scheme of 
wholesale butchery, to this day remains obscure. The 
effect of that delay, in whatever way caused, was for once 
such as must win every body's applause. The action had 
commenced at seven o'olock in the morning; by half past 
eight, the whole rebel army was in flight; and, naturally 
making for the only point left unguarded, it escaped with 
no great slaughter (but leaving behind all its artillery, and 
a good deal of valuable plunder) through what was fa- 
cetiously called ever afterwards Needhani's Gap. After 
this capital rout of Vinegar Hill, the rebel army day by 
day mouldered away. A large body, however, of the 
fiercest and most desperate continued for some time to 
make flying marches in all directions, according to the 
positions of the king's forces and the momentary favor of 
accidents. Once or twice they were brought to action by 
Sir James Duff* and Sir Charles Asgill ; and, ludicrously 
enough, once more they were suffered to escape by 
the eternal delays of the " late Needham." At length, 
however, after many skirmishrs, and all varieties of local 

* The same jest was applied to Mr. Pitt's brother. When first 
lord of the Admiralty, people calling on him as late as even 10 or 11, 
P.M., were told that his lordship was riding in the park. On this ac- 
count, partly, but more pointedly with a malicious reference to the 
contrast between his languor and the fiery activity of his father, the 
first earl, he was ocularly called the late Lord Chatham. 



FIRST REBELLION. 283 

success, they finally dispersed upon a bog in the county 
of Dublin. Many desperadoes, however took up their 
quarters for a long time in the dwarf woods of Killaughrim, 
near Enniscorthy, assuming the trade of marauders, but 
ludicrously designating themselves the Babes in the Wood. 
It is an inexplicable fact, that many deserters from the 
militia regiments, who had behaved well throughout the 
campaign, and adhered faithfully to their colors, now re- 
sorted to this confederation of the woods ; from which it 
cost some trouble to dislodge them. Another party, in the 
woods and mountains of Wicklow, were found still more 
formidable, and continued to infest the adjacent country 
through the ensuing winter. These were not finally ejected 
from their lairs until after one of their chiefs had been 
killed in a night skirmish by a young man defending his 
house, and the other chief, weary of his savage life, had 
surrendered himself to transportation. 

It diffused general satisfaction throughout Ireland, that, 
on the very day before the final engagement of Vinegar 
Hill, Lord Cornwallis made his entry into Dublin as the 
new lord lieutenant. A proclamation, issued early in 
July, of general amnesty to all who had shed no blood 
except on the field of battle, notified to the country the 
new spirit of policy which now distinguished the govern- 
ment ; and, doubtless, that one merciful change worked 
marvels in healing the agitations of the land. Still it was 
thought necessary that severe justice should take 'its course 
amongst the most conspicuous leaders or agents in the in- 
surrection. Martial law still prevailed ; and under that 
law we know, through a speech of the Duke of Welling- 
ton's, how entirely the very elements of justice are depend- 
ent upon individual folly or caprice. Many of those who 
had shown the greatest generosity, and with no slight risk 
to themselves, were now selected ~ sufl^er. Bagenal Har- 



284 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

vey, a Protestant gentleman, who had held the supreme 
command of the rebel army for some time with infinite 
vexation to himself, and taxed with no one instance of 
cruelty or excess, was one of those doomed to execution. 
He had possessed an estate of nearly three thousand per 
annum ; and at the same time with him was executed an- 
other gentleman, of more than three times that estate, 
Cornelius Grogan. Singular it was, that men of this con- 
dition and property, men of feeling and refinement, should 
have staked the happiness of their families upon a contest 
so forlorn. Some there were, however, and possibly these 
gentlemen, who could have explained their motives intelli- 
gibly enough : they had been forced by persecution, and 
actually baited into the ranks of the rebels. One pictu- 
resque difference in the deaths of these two gentlemen was 
remarkable, as contrasted with their previous habits. Gro- 
gan was constitutionally timid ; and yet he faced the scaf- 
fold and the trying preparations of the executioner with 
fortitude. On the other hand, Bagenal Harvey, who had 
fought several duels with coolness, exhibited considerable 
trepidation in his last moments. Perhaps, in both, the dif- 
ference might be due entirely to some physical accident 
of health or momentary nervous derangement,* 

* Perhaps also not. Possibly enough there may be no call for any 
such exceptional solution ; for, after all, there may be nothing to 
solve — no dignus vindice nodus. As regards the sudden interchange 
of characters on the scaffold, — the constitutionally brave man all at 
once becoming timid, and the timid man becoming brave, — it must be 
remembered, that the particular sort of courage applicable to duel- 
ling, when the danger is much more of a fugitive and momentary 
order than that which invests a battle lasting for hours, depends 
almost entirely upon a man's confidence in his own luck — a pecu- 
liarity of mind which exists altogether apart from native resoui'ces of 
courage, whether moral or physical : usually this moc'e of courage is 
but a transformed expression for a sanguine temperament. A man 



FIRST REBELLION. 285 

Among the crowd, however, of persons who suffered 
death at this disastrous era, there were two that merit a 
special commemoration for their virtuous resistance, in dis- 
regard of all personal risk, to a horrid fanaticism of cruelty. 
One was a butcher, the other a seafaring man — both reb- 
els. But they must have been truly generous, brave, and 



who is habitually depressed by a constitutional taint of despondency 
may carry into a duel a sublime principle of calm, self-sacrificing 
courage, as being possibly utterly without hope — a courage, there- 
fore, which has to fight with internal resistance, to which there may 
be nothing corresponding in a cheerful temperament. 

But there is another and separate agency through which the 
fear of death may happen to act as a disturbing force, and most irreg- 
ularly as viewed in relation to moral courage and strength of mind. 
This anomalous force is the imaginative and shadowy terror with 
which different minds recoil from death — not considered as an agony 
or torment, but considered as a mystery, and, next after God, as the 
most infinite of mysteries. In a brave man this terror may happen „ 
to be strong ; in a pusillanimous man, simply through inertness and 
original feebleness of imagination, may happen to be scarcely devel- 
oped. This oscillation of horror, alternating between death as an agony 
and death as a mystery, not only exists with a corresponding set of con 
sequences accordingly as one or other prevails, but is sometimes con- 
sciously contemplated and put into the scales of comparison and coun- 
ter valuation. For instance, one of the early Ctesars reviewed the 
case thus : " Einori nolo ; me esse mortuum nihil cestumo : From death as 
the act and process of dying, I revolt ; but as to death, viewed as a 
permanent state or condition, I don't value it at a straw." What this 
particular Caesar detested, and viewed with burning malice, was death 
the agony — death the physical torment. As to death the mystery, 
want of sensibility to the infinite and the shadowy had disarmed that 
of its terrors for h\Hi. Yet, on the contrary, how many are there 
who face the mere physical anguish of dying with stern indifference ! 
But death the mystery, — death that, not satisfied with changing our 
objective, may attack even the roots of our subjective, — there lies the 
mute, ineffable, voiceless horror before which all human courage is 
abashed, even as all human resistance becomes childish when measur- 
ing itself against gravitation. 



286 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

noble-minded men. Durir.g the occupation of Wexford by 
the rebel army, they were repeatedly the sole opponents, 
at great personal risk, to the general massacre then medi- 
tated by some few Popish bigots. And, finally, when all 
resistance seemed likely to be unavailing, they both de- 
manded resolutely from the chief patron of this atrocious 
policy that he should fight themselves, armed in whatever 
way he might prefer, and, as they expressed it, " prove 
himself a man," before he should be at liberty to sport in 
this wholesale way with innocent blood. 

One painful fact I will state in taking leave of this sub- 
iect ; and tliat^ I believe, will be quite sufficient to sustain 
any thing I have said in disparagement of the government ; 
by which, however, I mean, in justice, the local administra- 
tion of Ireland. For, as to the supreme government in 
England, that body must be supposed, at the utmost, to 
have passively acquiesced in the recommendations of the 
Irish cabinet, even when it interfered so far. In particu- 
lar, the scourgings and flagellations resorted to in Wexford 
and Kildare, &c., must have been originally suggested by 
minds familiar with the habits of the Irish aristocracy in 
the treatment of dependants. Candid Irishmen will admit 
that the habit of kicking, or threatening to kick, waiters in 
coffee houses or other menial dependants, — a habit which, - 
in England, would be met instantly by defiance and men- 
aces of action for assault and battery, — is not yet altogeth- 
er obsolete in Ireland.* Thirty years ago it was still more 
prevalent, and presupposed that spirit and temper in the 
treatment of menial dependants, out of which, doubtless, 
arose the practice of judicial (/. e., tentative) flagellations. 
Meantime, that fact with which I proposed to close my rec- 
ollections of this great tumult, and which seems to be a 

* " Not yet altogether obsolete:' — Written in 1833. 



FIRST REBELLION. 287 

sufficient guaranty for the very severest reflections on the 
spirit of the government, is expressed significantly in the 
terms, used habitually by Roman Catholic gentlemen, in 
prudential exculpation of themselves, when threatened with 
inquiry for their conduct during these times of agitation : 
" I thank my God that no man can charge me justly with 
having saved the life of any Protestant, or his house from 
pillage, by my intercession with the rebel chiefs." How! 
Did men boast of collusion with violence and the spirit of 
massacre ! What did that mean ? It meant this : Some 
Roman Catholics had pleaded, and pleaded truly, as a rea- 
son for special indulgence to themselves, that any influence 
which might belong to them, on the score of religion or of 
private friendship, with the rebel authorities, had been used 
by them on behalf of persecuted Protestants, either in de- 
livering them altogether, or in softening their doom. But, 
to the surprise of every body, this plea was so far from 
being entertained favorably by the courts of inquiry, that, on 
the contrary, an argument was built upon it, dangerous in 
the last degree to the pleader. " You admit, then," it was 
retorted, " having had this very considerable influence 
upon the rebel councils ; your influence extended to the 
saving of lives ; in that case we must suppose you to have 
been known privately as their friend and supporter." 
Thus to have delivered an innocent man from murder, ar- 
gued that the deliverer must have been an accomplice of 
the murderous party. Readily it may be supposed that 
few would be disposed to urge such a vindication, when it 
became known in what way it was likely to operate. The 
government itself had made it perilous to profess human- 
ity ; and every man henceforward gloried publicly in his 
callousness and insensibility, as the one best safeguard to 
himself on a path so closely beset with rocks. 



CHAPTER X. 

FRENCH INVASION OF IRELAND, AND SECOND 
REBELLION. 

The decisive battle of Vinegar Hill took place at mid- 
summer; and with that battle terminated the First Rebel- 
lion. Two months later, a French force, not making fully 
a thousand men, under the command of General Humbert, 
landed on the west coast of Ireland, and again roused the 
Irish peasantry to insurrection. This latter insurrection, 
and the invasion which aroused it, naturally had a peculiar 
interest for Lord Westport and myself, who, in our present 
abode of Westport House, were living in its local centre. 

I, in particular, was led, by hearing on every side the 
conversation reverting to the dangers and tragic incidents 
of the era, separated from us by not quite two years, to 
make inquiries of every body who had personally partici- 
pated in the commotions. Records there were on every 
side, and memorials even in our bed rooms, of this French 
visit ; for, at one time, they had occupied Westport House 
in some strength. The largest town in our neighborhood 
was Castlebar, distant about eleven Irish miles. To this it 
was that the French addressed their very earliest efforts. 
Advancing rapidly, and with their usual style of theatrical 
confidence, they had obtained at first a degree of success 

288 



SECOND REBELLION. 289 

which was almost surprising to their own insolent vanity, 
and which, long afterwards, became a subject of bitter 
mortification to our own army. Had there been at this 
point any energy at all corresponding to that of the enemy, 
or commensurate to the intrinsic superiority of our own 
troops in steadiness, the French would have been compelled 
to lay down their arms. The experience of those days, 
however, showed how deficient is the finest composition 
of an army, unless where its martial qualities have been 
developed by practice ; and how liable is all courage, when 
utterly inexperienced to sudden panics. This gasconading 
advance, which would have foundered utterly against a 
single battalion of the troops which fought in 1812-13 
amongst the Pyrenees, was here for the moment successful. 
The bishop of this see, Dr. Stock, with his whole house- 
hold, and, indeed, his whole pastoral charge, became, on 
this occasion, prisoners to the enemy. The republican 
head quarters were fixed for a time in the episcopal pal- 
ace ; and there it was that General Humbert and his staff 
lived in familiar intercourse with the bishop, who thus 
became well qualified to record (which he soon afterwards 
did in an anonymous pamphlet) the leading circumstances 
of the French incursion, and the consequent insurrection in 
Connaught, as well as the most striking features in the 
character and deportment of the republican officers. Rid- 
ing over the scene of these transactions daily for some 
months, in company with Dr. Peter Browne, the Dean of 
Ferns, (an illegitimate son of the late Lord Altamont, and, 
therefore, half brother to the present,) whose sacred charac- 
ter had not prevented him from taking that military part 
which seemed, in those difficult moments, a duty of ele- 
mentary patriotism laid upon all alike, I enjoyed many 
opportunities for checking the statements of the bishop. 
The small body of French troor)s which undertook this 
19 



290 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

remote service had been detached in one half from the 
army of the Rhine; the other half had served under Napo- 
leon in his first foreign campaign, viz., the Italian campaign 
of 1796, which accomplished the conquest of Northern 
Italy. Those from Germany showed, by their looks and 
their meagre condition, how much they had suffered ; and 
some of them, in describing their hardships, told their Irish 
acquaintance that, during the seige of Metz, which had 
occurred in the previous winter of 1797, they had slept in 
holes made four feet below the surface of the snow. One 
officer declared solemnly that he had not once undressed, 
further than by taking off his coat, for a period of twelve 
months. The private soldiers had all the essential qualities 
fitting them for a difficult and trjnng service : " intelligence, 
activity, temperance, patience to a surprismg degree, togeth- 
er with the exactest discipline." This is the statement of 
their candid and upright enemy. " Yet," says the bishop, 
" with all these martial qualities, if you except the grena- 
diers, they had nothing to catch the eye. Their stature, 
for the most part, was low, their complexion pale and 
yellow, their clothes much the worse for wear: to a super- 
ficial observer, they would have appeared incapable of 
enduring any hardship. These were the men, however, 
of whom it was presently observed, that they could be well 
content to live on bread or potatoes, to drink water, to 
make the stones of the street their bed, and to sleep in 
their clothes, with no covering but the canopy of heaven." 
" How vast," says Cicero, " is the revenue of Parsimony ! " 
and, by a thousand degrees more striking, how celestial is 
the strength that descends upon the feeble through Tem- 
perance ! 

It may well be imagined in what terror the families of 
Killala heard of a French invasion, and the necessity of 
immediately receiving a republican army. As sans culottes 



SECOND REBELLION. 291 

these men, all over Europe, had the reputation of pursuing 
a ferocious marauding policy ; in fact, they were held little 
better than sanguinary brigands. In candor, it must be 
admitted that their conduct at Killala belied these reports; 
though, on the other hand, an obvious interest obliged them 
to a more pacific demeanor in a land which they saluted as 
friendly, and designed to raise into extensive insurrection. 
The French army, so much dreaded, at length arrived. 
The general and his staff entered the palace ; and the first 
act of one officer, on coming into the dining room, was to 
advance to the sideboard, sweep all the plate into a basket, 
and deliver it to the bishop's butler, with a charge to carry 
it off* to a place of security.* 

The French officers, with the detachment left under their 
orders by the commander-in-chief, staid about one month 
at Killala. This period allowed opportunities enough for 
observing individual differences of character and the gen- 
eral tone of their manners. These opportunities were not 
thrown away upon the bishop ; he noticed with a critical 
eye, and he recorded on the spot, whatever fell within his 
own experience. Had he, however, happened to be a 
political or courtier bishop, his record would, perhaps, 
have been suppressed; and, at any rate, it would have 
been colored by prejudice. As it was, I believe it to have 

* As this happened to be the truth, the bishop did right to report 
it. Othenvise, his lordship does not seem to have had much acquaint- 
ance with the French scenical mode of arranging their public acts 
for purposes of effect. Cynical people (like myself, when looking 
back to this anecdote from the year 1833) were too apt to remark 
that this plate and that basket were carefully numbered ; that the 
episcopal butler (like Pharaoh's) was liable, alas! to be hanged in 
case the plate were not forthcoming on a summons from head 
quarters; and that the Ivillala "place of security" was kindly 
strengthened, under the maternal anxiety of the French republic, by 
doubling the French sentries. 



292 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

been the honest testimony of an honest man ; and, con- 
sidering the minute circumstantiality of its delineations, I 
do not believe that, throughout the revolutionary war, any 
one document was made public which throws so much 
light on the quality and composition of the French repub- 
lican armies. On this consideration I shall extract a few 
passages from the bishop's personal sketches. 

The commander-in-chief of the French armament is 
thus delineated by the bishop : — 

" Humbert, the leader of this singular body of men, was 
himself as extraordinary a personage as any in his army. 
Of a good height and shape, in the full vigor of life, prompt 
to decide, quick in execution, apparently master of his art, 
you could not refuse him the praise of a good officer, while 
his physiognomy forbade you to like him as a man. His 
eye, which was small and sleepy, cast a sidelong glance 
of insidiousness and even of cruelty ; it was the eye of a 
cat preparing to spring upon her prey. His education and 
manners were indicative of a person sprung from the lower 
orders of society ; though he knew how to assume, when 
it was convenient, the deportment of a gentleman. For 
learning, he had scarcely enough to enable him to write 
his name. His passions were furious ; and all his be- 
havior seemed marked with the character of roughness and 
insolence. A narrower observation of him, however, seemed 
to discover that much of this roughness was the result of 
art, being assumed with the view of extorting by terror a 
ready compliance with his commands." Of this truth the 
bishop himself was one of the first who had occasion to be 
made sensible." 

The particular occasion here alluded to by the bishop 
arose out of the first attempts to effect the disembarkation of 
the military stores and equipments from the French ship- 
ping, as also to forward them when landed. The case was 



SECOND REBELLION. 293 

one of extreme urgency ; and proportionate allowance 
must be made for the French general. Every moment 
might bring the British cruisers insight, — two important 
expeditions had already been baffled in that way, — and the 
absolute certainty, known to all parties alike, that delay, 
under these circumstances, was tantamount to ruin ; that 
upon a difference of ten or fifteen minutes, this way or that, 
might happen to hinge the whole issue of the expedition : 
such a consciousness gave unavoidably to every demur 
at this critical moment the color of treachery. Neither 
boats, nor carts, nor horses could be obtained ; the owners 
most imprudently and selfishly retiring from that service. 
Such being the extremity, the French general made the 
bishop responsible for the execution of his orders ; but the 
bishop had really no means to enforce this commission, 
and failed. Upon that, General Humbert threatened to 
send his lordship, together with his whole family, prisoners 
of war to France, and assumed the air of a man violently 
provoked. Here came the crisis for determining the bishop's 
weight amongst his immediate flock, and his hold upon 
their affections. One great bishop, not far off, would, on 
such a trial, have been exultingly consigned to his fate : 
that I well know ; for Lord Westport and I, merely as his 
visitors, were attacked in the dusk so fiercely with stones, 
that we were obliged to forbear going out unless in broad 
daylight. Luckily the Bishop of Killala had shown himself 
a Christian pastor, and now he reaped the fruits of his 
goodness. The public selfishness gave way when the 
danger of the bishop was made known. The boats, the 
carts, the horses were now liberally brought in from their 
lurking-places ; the artillery and stores were landed ; and 
the drivers of the carts, &c., were paid in drafts upon the 
Irish Directory, which (if it were an aerial coin) served at 
least to mark an unwillingness in the enemy to adopt 



294 ATJTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

violent m jdes of hostility, and ultimately became available in 
the very character assigned to them by the French general ; 
not, indeed, as drafts upon the rebel, but as claims upon 
the equity of the English government. 

The officer left in command at Killala, when the pres- 
ence of the commander-in-chief was required elsewhere, 
bore the name of Charost. He was a lieutenant colonel, 
aged forty-five years, the son of a Parisian watchmaker. 
Having been sent over at an early age to the unhappy 
Island of St. Domingo, with a view to some connections 
there by which he hoped to profit, he had been fortunate 
enough to marry a young woman who brought him a 
plantation for her dowry, which was reputed to have yield- 
ed him a revenue of ^2000 sterling per annum. But this, 
of course, all went to wreck in one day, upon that mad 
decree of the French convention which proclaimed liberty, 
without distinction, without restrictions, and without grada- 
tions, to the unprepared and ferocious negroes.* Even his 
wife and daughter would have perished simultaneously with 
his property but for English protection, which delivered 
them from the black sabre, and transferred them to Jamaica. 
There, however, though safe, they were, as respected Col- 
onel Charost, unavoidably captives ; and " his eyes would 
fill," says the bishop, " when he told the family that he had 
not seen these dear relatives for six years past, nor even 
had tidings of them for the last three years." On his re- 
turn to France, finding that to have been a watchmaker's 
son was no longer a bar to the honors of the military pro- 
fession, he had entered the army, and had risen by merit to 



* I leave this passage as it was written originally undor an im- 
pression then universally current. But, from what I have since read 
on this subject, I beg to be considered as speaking very doubtfully on 
the true causes of the St. Domingo disasters. 



SECOND REBELLION. 295 

the rank which he now held. " He had a plain, good under- 
standing. He seemed careless or doubtful of revealed re- 
ligion, but said that he believed in God ; was inclined to 
think that there must be a future state ; and was very sure 
that, while he lived in this world, it was his duty to do all 
the good to his fellow-creatures that he could. Yet what 
he did not exhibit in his own conduct he appeared to respect 
in others ; for he took care that no noise or disturbance 
should be made in the castle (i. e., the bishop's palace) on 
Sundays, while the family, and many Protestants from the 
town, were assembled in the library at their devotions. 

" Boudet, the next in command, was a captain of foot, 
twenty-eight years old. His father, he said, was still liv- 
ing, though sixty-seven years old when he was born. His 
height was six feet two inches. In person, complexion, and 
gravity, he was no inadequate representation of the Knight 
of La Mancha, whose example he followed in a recital of 
his own prowess and wonderful exploits, delivered in meas- 
ured language and an imposing seriousness of aspect." 
The bishop represents him as vain and irritable, but distin- 
guished by good feeling and principle. Another officer 
was Ponson, described as five feet six inches high, lively 
and animated in excess, volatile, noisy, and chattering a 
Voutrance. " He was hardy," says the bishop, " and pa- 
tient to admiration of labor and want of rest." And of 
this last quality the following wonderful illustration is 
given : " A continued watching of Jive days and nights 
together^ when the rebels were growing desperate for prey 
and mischief, did not appear to sink his spirits in the 
smallest degreed 

Contrasting with the known rapacity of the French repub- 
lican army in all its ranks the severest honesty of these 
particular officers, v^e must come to the conclusion, either 
that they had been selected for their tried qualities of 



296 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

abstinence and self-control, or else that the perilous tenure 
of their footing in Ireland had coerced them into forbearance. 
Of this same Ponson, the last described, the bishop declares 
that " he was strictly honest, and could not bear the absence 
of this quality in others ; so that his patience was pretty 
well tried by his Irish allies." At the same time, he ex- 
pressed his contempt for religion in a way which the bishop 
saw reason for ascribing to vanity — "the miserable affec- 
tation of appearing worse than he really was." One officer 
there was, named Truc^ whose brutality recalled the impres- 
sicn, so disadvantageous to French republicanism, which 
else had been partially effaced by the manners and conduct 
of his comrades. To him the bishop (and not the bishop 
only, but many of my own informants, to whom True had 
been familiarly known) ascribes " a front of brass, an 
incessant fraudful smile, manners altogether vulgar, and in 
his dress and person a neglect of cleanliness, even beyond 
the affected negligence of republicans." 

True, however, happily, was not leader ; and the prin- 
ciples or the policy of his superiors prevailed. To them, 
not merely in their own conduct, but also in their way of 
applying that influence which they held over their most 
bigoted allies, the Protestants of Connaught were under 
deep obligations. Speaking merely as to property, the hon- 
est bishop renders the following justice to the enemy : 
" And here it would be an act of great injustice to the 
excellent discipline constantly maintained by these invaders 
while they remained in our town, not to remark, that, with 
every temptation to plunder, which the time and the number 
of valuable articles within their reach presented to them in 
the bishop's palace, from a sideboard of plate and glasses, 
a hall filled with hats, whips, and greatcoats, as well of the 
guests as of the family, not a single parti ular of private 
property was found to have been carried away, when the 



"' - SECOND REBELLION. 297 

owners, after the first fright, came to look for their effects, 
which was not for a day or two after the landing." Even 
in matters of delicacy the same forbearance was exhibited : 
" Beside the entire use of other apartments, during the 
stay of the French in Killala, the attic story, containing a 
library and three bed chambers, continued sacred to the 
bishop and his family. And so scrupulous was the delicacy 
of the French not to disturb the female part of the house, 
that not one of them was ever seen to go higher than the 
middle floor, except on the evening of the success at 
Castlebar, when two officers begged leave to carry to the 
family the news of the battle ; and seemed a little morti- 
fied that the news was received with an air of dissatis- 
faction." These, however, were not the weightiest in- 
stances of that eminent service which the French had it in 
their power to render on this occasion. The royal army 
behaved ill in every sense. Liable to continual panics in 
the field, — panics which, but for the overwhelming force 
accumulated, and the discretion of Lord Cornwallis, would 
have been fatal to the good cause, — the royal forces erred 
as unthinkingly, in the abuse of any momentary triumph. 
Forgetting that the rebels held many hostages in their hands, 
they once recommenced the old system practised in Wex- 
ford and Kildare — of hanging and shooting without trial, 
and without a thought of the horrible reprisals that might 
be adopted. These reprisals, but for the fortunate influence 
of the French commanders, and but for their great energy 
in applying that influence according to the exigencies of 
time and place, would have been made : it cost the whole 
weight of the French power, their influence was stretched 
almost to breaking, before they could accomplish their pur- 
pose of neutralizing the senseless cruelty of the royalists, 
and of saving the trembling Protestants. Dreadful were 
the anxieties of these moments ; and I myself heard per- 



298 AUT )BIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

sons, at a distance of nearly two years, declare that their 
lives hung at that time by a thread ; and that, but for the 
hasty approach of the lord lieutenant by forced marches, 
that thread would have snapped. " We heard with panic," 
said they, " of the madness which characterized the pro- 
ceedings of our soi'disant friends ; and, for any chance of 
safety, unavoidably we looked only to our nominal enemies 
— the staff of the French army." 

One story was still carrent, and very frequently repeated, 
at the time of my own residence upon the scene of these 
transactions. It would not be fair to mention it, without 
saying, at the same time, that the bishop, whose discretion 
was so much impeached by the affair, had the candor to 
blame himself most heavily, and always applauded the 
rebel for the lesson he had given him. The case was this : 
Day after day the royal forces had been accumulating 
upon military posts in the neighborhood of Killala, and 
could be descried from elevated stations in that town. 
Stories travelled simultaneously to Killala, every hour, of 
the atrocities which marked their advance ; many, doubt- 
less, being fictions, either of blind hatred, or of that fero- 
cious policy which sought to make the rebels desperate, by 
tempting them into the last extremities of guilt, but, un- 
happily, too much countenanced as to their general outline, 
by excesses on the royal part, already proved, and undeni- 
able. The ferment and the anxiety increased every hour 
amongst the rebel occupants of Killala. The French had 
no power to protect, beyond the moral one of their influ- 
ence as allies; and, in the very crisis of this alarming 
situation, a rebel came to the bishop with the news that 
the royal cavalry was at that moment advancing from 
Sligo, and could be traced along the country by the line of 
blazing houses which accompanied their march. The 
bishop doubted this, and expressed his doubt. " Come with 



SECOr^D REBELLION. 299 

me," said the rebel. It was a matter of policy to yield, 
and his lordship Avent. They ascended together the Nee- 
dle Tower Hill, from the summit of which the bishop now 
discovered that the fierce rebel had spoken but too truly. 
A line of smoke and fire ran over the country in the rear 
of a strong patrol detached from the king's forces. The 
moment was critical ; the rebel's eye expressed the un- 
settled state of his feelings ; and, at that instant, the im- 
prudent bishop utterred a sentiment which, to his dying 
day, he could not forget. ** They," said he, meaning the 
ruined houses, " are only wretched cabins. " The rebel 
mused, and for a few moments seemed in self-conflict — a 
dreadful interval to the bishop, who became sensible of his 
own extreme imprudence the very moment after the words 
had escaped him. However, the man contented himself 
with saying, after a pause, " A poor man's cabin is to him 
as dear as a palace." It is probable that this retort was 
far from expressing the deep moral indignation at his heart, 
though his readiness of mind failed to furnish him with any 
other more stinging ; and, in such cases, all depends upon 
the first movement of vindictive feeling being broken. The 
bishop, however, did not forget the lesson he had received ; 
nor did he fail to blame himself most heavily, not so much 
for his imprudence as for his thoughtless adoption of a lan- 
guage expressing an aristocratic hauteur that did not be- 
long to his real character. There was, indeed, at that 
moment no need that fresh fuel should be applied to the 
irritation of the rebels ; they had already declared their 
intention of plundering the town ; and, as they added, " in 
spite of the French," whom they now regarded, and 
openly denounced, as " abetters of the Protestants," much 
more than as their own allies. 

Justice, however, must be done to the rebels as well as tc 
their military associates. If they were disposed to plunder 



300 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

they were found generally to shrink from bloodshed and 
cruelty, and yet from no want of energy or determination. 
" The peasantry never appeared to want animal courage," 
says the bishop, " for they flocked together to meet danger 
whenever it was expected. Had it pleased Heaven to be 
as liberal to them of brains as of hands, it is not easy to 
say to what length of mischief they might have proceeded ; 
but they were all along unprovided with leaders of any 
ability." This, I believe, was true ; and yet it would be 
doing poor justice to the Connaught rebels, nor would it be 
drawing the moral truly as respects this aspect of the rebel- 
lion, if their abstinence from mischief, in its worst form, were 
to be explained out of this defect in their leaders. Nor is 
it possible to suppose that the bishop's meaning, though his 
words seem to tend that way. For he himself elsewhere 
notices the absence of all wanton bloodshed as a feature of 
this Connaught rebellion most honorable in itself to the 
poor misguided rebels, and as distinguishing it very remark- 
ably from the greater insurrection so recently crushed in 
the centre and the east. " It is a circumstance," says he, 
" worthy of particular notice, that, during the whole time of 
this civil commotion, not a single drop of blood was shed by 
the Connaught rebels, except in the field of war. It is true, 
the example and influence of the French went a great way 
to prevent sanguinary excesses. But it will not be deemed 
fair to ascribe to this cause alone the forbearance of which 
we were witnesses, when it is considered what a range of 
country lay at the mercy of the rebels for several days after 
the French power was known to be at an end." 

To what, then, are we to ascribe the forbearance of the 
Connaught men, so singularly contrasted with the hideous 
excesses of their brethren in the east ? Solely to the diflTer- 
ent complexion (so, at least, I was told) of the policy pur- 
sued by government. In Wexford, Kildare, Meath, Dublin, 



SECOND REBELLION. 301 

&c., it had been judged advisable to adopt, as a sort of 
precautionary policy, not for the punishment, but for the dis- 
covery of rebelHous purposes, measures of the direst sever- 
ity ; not merely free quarterings of the soldiery, with liberty 
(or even an express commission) to commit outrages and 
insults upon all who were suspected, upon all who refused 
to countenance such measures, upon all who presumed to 
question their justice, but even, under color of martial 
law, to inflict croppings, and pitch cappings, half hangings, 
and the torture of " picketings ; " to say nothing of houses 
burned, and farms laid waste — things which were done daily, 
and under military orders ; the purpose avowed being either 
vengeance for some known act of insurrection, or the deter- 
mination to extort confessions. Too often, however, as 
may well be sClpposed, in such utter disorganization of 
society, private malice, either personal or on account of old 
family feuds, was the true principle at work. And many 
were thus driven, by mere frenzy of just indignation, or, 
perhaps, by mere desperation, into acts of rebellion which 
else they had not meditated. Now, in Connaught, at this 
time, the same barbarous policy was no longer pursued ; 
and then it was seen, that, unless maddened by ill usage, 
the peasantry were capable of great self-control. There 
was no repetition of the Enniscorthy massacres ; and it was 
impossible to explain honestly ivhy there was none, without, 
at the same time, reflecting back upon that atrocity some 
color of palliation. 

These things considered, it must be granted that there 
was a spirit of unjustifiable violence in the royal army on 
achieving their triumph. It is shocking, however, to observe 
the effect of panic to irritate the instincts of cruelty and 
sanguinary violence, even in the gentlest minds. I remem- 
ber well, on occasion of the memorable tumults in Bristol, 
(aulMmn of 1831,) that I, for my part, could not read, with- 



302 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

out horror and indignation, one statement, (made, I believe 
officially at that time,) which yet won the cordial approba- 
tion of some ladies who had participated in the panic. I 
allude to that part of the report which represents several of 
the dragoons as having dismounted, resigned the care of 
their horses to persons in the street, and pursued the unhappy 
fugitives, criminals, undoubtedly, but no longer dangerous, 
up stairs and down stairs, to the last nook of their retreat. 
The worst criminals could not be known and identified as 
such ; and even in a case where they could, vengeance so 
hellish and so unrelenting was not justified by houses burned 
or by momentary panics raised. Scenes of the same de- 
scription were beheld upon the first triumph of the royal 
cause in Connaught ; and but for Lord Cornwallis, equally 
firm before his success and moderate in its exercise, they 
would have prevailed more extensively. The poor rebels 
were pursued with a needless ferocity on the recapture of 
Killala. So hotly, indeed, did some of the conquerors hang 
upon the footsteps of the fugitives, that both rushed almost 
simultaneously — pursuers and pursued — into the terror- 
stricken houses of Killala; and, in some instances, the ball 
meant for a rebel told with mortal effect upon a royalist. 
Here, indeed, as in other cases of this rebellion, in candor 
it should be mentioned, that the royal army was composed 
chiefly of militia regiments. Not that militia, or regiments 
composed chiefly of men who had but just before volun- 
teered for the line, have not often made unexceptionable sol- 
diers ; but in this case there was no reasonable proportion 
of veterans, or men who had seen any service. The Bishop 
of Killala was assured by an intelligent officer of the king's 
army that the victors were within a trifle of being beaten. 
I was myself told by a gentlemen who rode as a volunteer 
on that day, that, to the best of his belief, it was merely a 
mistaken order of the rebel chiefs causing a false application 



SECOND REBELLION. 303 

of a select reserve at a very critical moment, which had 
saved his own party from a ruinous defeat. It may be 
added, upon almost universal testimony, that the recapture 
of Killala was abused, not only as respected the defeated 
rebels, but also as respected the royalists of that town. 
" The regiments that came to their assistance, being all mili- 
tia, seemed to think that they had a right to take the prop- 
erty they had been the means of preserving, and to use it as 
their own whenever they stood in need of it. Their ra- 
pacity differed in no respect from that of the rebels, except 
that they seized upon things with less of ceremony and 
excuse, and that his majesty's soldiers were incomparably 
superior to the Irish traitors in dexterity at stealing. In 
consequence, the town grew very weary of their guests, 
and were glad to see them march off to other quarters." 

The military operations in this brief campaign were dis- 
creditable, in the last degree, to the energy, to the vigilance, 
and to the steadiness of the Orange army. Humbert had 
been a leader against the royalists of La Vendee, as well 
as on the Rhine ; consequendy he was an ambidextrous 
enemy — fitted equally for partisan warfare, and for the 
tactics of regular armies. Keenly alive to the necessity, 
under his circumstances, of vigor and despatch, after oc- 
cupying Killala on the evening of the 22d August, (the day 
of his disembarkation,) where the small garrison of 50 
men (yeomen and fencibles) had made a tolerable resist- 
ance, and after other trifling affairs, he had, on the 26th, 
marched against Castlebar with about 800 of his own men, 
and perhaps 1200 to 1500 of the rebels. Here was the 
advanced post of the royal army. General Lake (the Lord 
Lake of India) and Major General Hutchinson (the Lord 
Hutchinson of Egypt) had assembled upon this point a 
respectable force ; some say upwards of 4000, others not 
more than 1100. The disgraceful result is well known: 



304 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

the French, marching all night over mountain roads, and 
through one pass which was thought impregnable, if it had 
been occupied by a battalion instead of a captain's guard, 
surprised Castlebar on the morning of the 27th. Surprised, 
I say, for no word short of that can express the circum- 
stances of the case. About two o'clock in the morning, a 
courier had brought intelligence of the French advance ; 
but from some unaccountable obstinacy, at head quarters, 
such as had proved fatal more than either once or twice in 
the Wexford campaign, his news was disbelieved ; yet, if 
disbelieved, why therefore neglected ? Neglected, how- 
ever, it was ; and at seven, when the news proved to be 
true, the royal army was drawn out in hurry and confusion 
to meet the enemy. The French, on their part, seeing our 
strength, looked for no better result to themselves than 
summary surrender ; more especially as our artillery was 
well served, and soon began to tell upon their ranks. 
Better hopes first arose, as they afterwards declared, upon 
observing that many of the troops fired in a disorderly way, 
without waiting for the word of command ; upon this they 
took new measures : in a few minutes a panic arose ; 
General Lake ordered a retreat ; and then, in spite of all 
that could be done by the indignant officers, the flight be- 
came irretrievable. The troops reached Tuam, thirty miles 
distant, on that same day ; and one small party of mounted 
men actually pushed on to Athlone, which is above sixty 
miles from the field of battle. Fourteen pieces of artillery 
were lost on this occasion. However, it ought to be men- 
tioned that some serious grounds appeared afterwards for 
suspecting treachery ; most of those who had been reported 
" missinoj " havino; been afterwards observed in the ranks 
of the enemy, where it is remarkable enough (or perhaps 
not so remarkable, as simply implying how little they 
were trusted by their new allies, and for that reason how 



SECOND REBELLION. 



305 



naturally they were put forward on the most dangerous ser- 
vices) that these deserters perished to a man. Meantime, 
the new lord lieutenant, having his foot constantly in the 
stirrup, marched from Dublin without a moment's delay. 
By means of the grand canal, he made a forced march of 
fifty-six English miles in two days ; which brought him 
to Kilbeggan on the 27th. Very early on the following 
morning, he received the unpleasant news from Castlebar. 
Upon this he advanced to Athlone, meeting every indica- 
tion of a routed and panic-struck army. Lord Lake was 
retreating upon that town, and thought himself (it is said) 
so little secure, even at this distance from the enemy, that 
the road from Tuam was covered with strong patrols. On 
the other hand, in ludicrous contrast to these demonstrations 
of alarm, {supposing them to he related ivithout exaggera- 
tion^) the French had never stirred from Castlebar. On 
the 4th of September, Lord Cornwallis was within fourteen 
miles of that place. Humbert, however, had previously 
dislodged towards the county of Longford. His motive 
for this movement was to cooperate with an insurrection 
in that quarter, which had just then broken out in strength. 
He was now, howevei', hemmed in by a large army of per- 
haps 25,000 men, advancing from all points; and a few 
moves were all that remained of the game, played with 
whatever skill. Colonel Vereker, with about 300 of the 
Limerick militia, first came up with him, and skirmished 
very creditably (September 6) with part, or (as the colonel 
always maintained) with the whole of the French army. 
Other affairs of trival importance followed ; and at length, 
on the 8th of September, General Humbert surrendered with 
his whole army, now reduced to 844 men, of whom 96 
were officers ; having lost since their landing at Killala 
exactly 288 men. The rebels were not admitted to any 
terms ; they were pursued and cut down without mercy. 
20 



306 AUTOBIOGRjiPHIC SKETCHES. 

However, it is pleasant to know, that, from their agility m 
escaping, this cruel policy was defeated : not much above 
500 perished ; and thus were secured to the royal party the 
worst results of vengeance the fiercest, and of clemency 
the most undistmguishing, without any one advantage of 
either. Some districts, as Laggan and Eris, were treated 
with martial rigor; the cabins being burned, and their 
unhappy tenants driven out into the mountains for the win- 
ter. Rigor, therefore, there was ; for the most humane 
politicians, erroneously, as one must believe, fancied it ne- 
cessary for the army to leave behind some impressions of 
terror amongst the insurgents. It is certain, however, that, 
under the counsels of Lord Cornwall is, the standards of 
public severity were very much lowered, as compared with 
the previous examples in Wexford. 

The tardiness and slovenly execution of the whole ser 
vice, meantime, was well illustrated in what follows : — 

Killala was not delivered from rebel hands until the 23d 
of September, notwithstanding the general surrender had 
occurred on the 8th ; and then only in consequence of an 
express from the bishop to General Trench, hastening his 
march. The situation of the Protestants was indeed criti- 
cal. Humbert had left three French officers to protect the 
place, but their influence gradually had sunk to a shadow. 
And plans of pillage, with all its attendant horrors, were 
daily debated. Under these circumstances, the French 
officers behaved honorably and courageously. Yet," 
says the bishop, "the poor commandant had no reason to 
be pleased with the treatment he had received immediately 
after the action. He had returned to the castle for his 
sabre, and advanced with it to the gate, in order to deliver 
it up to some English officer, when it was seized and 
forced from his hand by a common soldier of Fraser's. 
He came in, got another sword, which he surrendered to 



SECOND REBELLION. 307 

an officer, and turned to reenter the hall. At this moment 
a second Highlander burst through the gate, in spite of the 
sentinel placed there by the general, and fired at the com- 
mandant with an aim that was near proving fatal, for the 
ball oassed under his arm, piercing a very thick door en- 
tirely through, and lodging in the jamb. Had we lost the 
worthy man by such an accident, his death would have 
spoiled the whole relish of our present enjoyment. He 
complained, and received an apology for the soldier's be- 
havior from his officer. Leave was immediately granted 
to the three French officers (left behind by Humbert at 
Killala) to keep their swords, their effects, and even their 
bed chambers in the house." 



■ Q:^ Note applying generally to this chapter on the Second Irish Re- 
bellion. — Already in 1833, when writing this 10th chapter, I felt a 
secret jealously (intermittingly recurring) that possibly I might have 
fallen under a false bias at this point of my youthful memorials. I 
myself had seen reason to believe — indeed, sometimes I knew for cer- 
tain — that, in the personalities of Irish politics from Grattan down- 
wards, a spirit of fiery misrepresentation prevailed, which made it 
hopeless to seek for any thing resembling truth. If in any quarter 
you found candor and liberality, that was because no interest existed 
in any thing Irish, and consequently no real information. Find out 
any man that could furnish you with information such as presupposed 
an interest in Ireland, and inevitably he turned out a bigoted partisan. 
There cannot be a stronger proof of this than the ridiculous libels and 
literary caricatures current even in England, through one whole gen- 
eration, against the late Lord Londonderry — a most able and faith- 
ful manager of our English foreign interests in times of unparalleled 
difficulty. Already in the closing years of the last century, his Irish 
policy had been inextricably falsified : subsequently, when he came to 
assume a leading pirt in the English Parliament, the efforts to calum- 
niate him became even more intense ; and it is only within the last 
five years that a reaction of public opinion on this subject has been 
strong enough to reach even those among his enemies who were en- 
lightened men. Liberal journals (such, e. ^r., as the "North British 
Review") now recognize his merits. Naturally it was impossible that 



308 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

the civil war of 1798 in Ireland, and the persons conspicuously con- 
nected with it, should escape this general destiny of Irish politics. I 
wrote, therefore, originally under a jealousy that partially I might have 
been duped. At present, in reviewing what I had written twenty 
years ago, I feel this jealousy much more keenly. I shrink from the 
bishop's malicious portraitures of our soldiers, sometimes of their 
officers, as composing a licentious army, without discipline, without 
humanity, without even steady courage. Has any man a right to ask 
our toleration for pictures so romantic as these 1 Duped perhaps I 
was myself: and it was natural that I should be so under the over- 
whelming influences oppressing any right that I could have at my ear- 
ly age to a free, independent judgment. But I will not any longer 
assist in duping the reader ; and I will therefore suggest to him two 
grounds of vehement suspicion against all the insidious colorings 
given to his statements by the bishop : — 

1st. I beg to remind the reader that this army of Mayo, in 1798, so 
unsteady and so undisciplined, if we believe the bishop, was in part 
the army of Egypt in the year 1801 : how would the bishop have an- 
swered that ? 

2dly. The bishop allows great weight in treating any allegations 
whatever against the English army or the English government, to the 
moderation, equity, and self-control claimed for the Irish peasanty 
as notorious elements ip their character. Meantime he forgets this 
doctrine most conspicuously at times ; and represents the safety of 
the Protestants against pillage, or even against a spirit of massacre, 
as entirely dependent on the influence of the French. Whether for 
property or life, it was to the French that the Irish Protestants looked 
for protection : not I it is, but the bishop, on whom that representatiou 
will be found to rest. 



CHAPTER XI. 

TRAVELLING. 

It was la e in October, or early in November, that I 
quitted Conniught with Lord Westport ; and very slowly, 
making mai y leisurely deviations from the direct route, 
travelled back to Dublin. Thence, after some little stay, 
we recrossed St. George's Channel, landed at Holyhead, 
and then, by exactly the same route as we had pursued in 
early June, we posted through Bangor, Conway, Llanrwst, 
Llangollen, until once again we found ourselves in Eng- 
land, and, as a matter of course, making for Birmingham. 
But why making for Birmingham ? Simply because Bir- 
mingham, under the old dynasty of stage coaches and post 
chaises, was the centre of our travelling system, and held 
in England something of that rank which the golden mile- 
stone of Rome held in the Italian peninsula. 

At Birmingham it was (which I, like myriads beside, 
had traversed a score of times without ever yet having 
visited it as a terminus ad quern) that I parted with my 
friend Lord Westport. His route lay through Oxford ; 
and stopping, therefore, no longer than was necessary to 
harness fresh horses, — an operation, however, which was 
seldom accomplished in less than half an hour at that era, 
— he went on directly to Stratford. My own destination 

309 



310 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

was yet doubtful. I had been directed, in Dublin, to in- 
quire at the Birmingham post office for a letter which 
would guide my motions. There, accordingly, upon send- 
ing for it, lay the expected letter from my mother ; from 
which I learned that my sister was visiting at Laxton, in 
Northamptonshire, the seat of an old friend, to which I 
also had an invitation. My route to this lay through Stam- 
ford. Thither I could not go by a stage coach until the 
following day ; and of necessity I prepared to make the 
most of my present day in gloomy, noisy, and, at that 
time, dirty Birmingham. 

Be not offended, compatriot of Birmingham, that I salute 
your natal town with these disparaging epithets. It is not 
my habit to indulge rash impulses of contempt towards 
any man or body of men, wheresoever collected, far less 
towards a race of high-minded and most intelligent citi- 
zens, such as Birmingham has exhibited to the admiration 
of all Europe. But as to the noise and the gloom which 
I ascribe to you, those features of your town will illustrate 
what the Germans mean by a one-sided* (ein-seitiger) 
judgment. There are, I can well believe, thousands to 
whom Birmingham is another name for domestic peace, 
and for a reasonable share of sunshine. But in my case, 
who have passed through Birmingham a hundred times, it 
always happened to rain, except once ; and that once the 
Shrewsbury mail carried me so rapidly away, that I had 
not time to examine the sunshine, or see whether it might 
not be some gilt Birmingham counterfeit ; for you know, 
men of Birmingham, that you caji counterfeit — such is 



* It marks the rapidity with which new phrases float themselves 
into currency under our present omnipresence of the press, that this 
word, now (viz., in 1853) familiarly used in every newspaper, then 
(viz., in 1833) required a sort of apology to warrant its introduction. 



TRAVELLING. 311 

your cleverness — all things in heaven and earth, from 
Jove's thunderbolts down to a tailor's bodkin. Therefore, 
the gloom is to be charged to my bad luck. Then, as to 
the noise, never did I sleep at that enormous Hen and 
Chickens^* to which usually my destiny brought me, but I 



* A well-known hotel, and also a coach inn, which we English in those 
days thought colossal. It was in fact, according to the spirit of Dr 
Johnson'r. witty reply to Miss Knight, big enough for an island. But 
our transatlantic brothers, dwelling upon so mighty a continent, have 
gradually enlarged their scale of inns as of other objects into a size of 
commensurate grandeur. In two separate New York journals, which, 
by the kindness of American friends, are at this moment (April 26) 
lying before me, I read astounding illustrations of this. For instance: 
(1.) In "Putnam's .Monthly" for April, 1853, the opening article, a 
very amusing one, entitled "New York daguerreotyped," estimates 
the hotel population of that vast city as " not much short of ten thou- 
sand ; " and one individual hotel, apparently far from being the most 
conspicuous, viz., the Metropolitan, reputed to have " more than twelve 
miles of water and gas pipe, and two hundred and fifty servants," 
offers "accommodations for one thousand guests." (2.) Yet even this 
Titanic structure dwindles by comparison with TTie Mount Vernon 
Hotel at Cape May, N. J., (meant, I suppose, for New Jersey,) which 
advertises itself in the " New York Herald," of April 12, 1853, under 
the authority of Mr. J. Taber, its aspiring landlord, as offering accom- 
modations, from the 20th of next June, to the romantic number of 
three thousand Jive hundred guests. The Birmingham Hen and Chickens 
undoubtedly had slight pretensions by the side of these behemoths 
and mammoths. And yet, as a street in a very little town may hap- 
pen to be quite as noisy as a street in London, I can testify that any 
single gallery in this Birmingham hotel, if measured in importance 
by the elements of discomfort which it could develop, was entitled to 
an American rating. But alas ! Fiat Ilium ; 1 have not seen the 
ruins of this ancient hotel ; but an instinct tells me that the railroad 
has run right through it; that the hen has ceased to lay golden eggs, 
and that her chickens are dispersed. (3.) As another illustration, I 
may mention that, in the middle of March, 1853, 1 received, as a pres- 
ent from New York, the following newspaper. Each page contained 
eleven columns, whereas our London '• Times " contains only six. It 



312 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

had reason to complain that the discreet hen did not gather 
her vagrant flock to roost at less variable hours. Till two 
or three, I was kept waking by those who were retiring ; 
and about three commenced the morning functions of the 
porter, or of " boots," or of " underboots," who began their 
rounds for collecting the several freights for the Highflyer, 
or the Tally-ho, or the Bang-up, to all points of the com- 
pass, and too often (as must happen in such immense es- 
tablishments) blundered into my room with that appalling, 
" Now, sir, the horses are coming out." So that rarely, 
indeed, have I happened to sleep in Birmingham. But the 
dirt ! — that sticks a little with you, friend of Birmingham. 
How do I explain away that 7 Know, then, reader, that 
at the time I speak of, and in the way I speak of, viz., in 
streets and inns, all England was dirty. 

Being left therefore alone for the whole of a rainy day 
in Birmingham, and Birmingham being as yet the centre 
of our traveUing system, I cannot do better than spend my 
Birmingham day in reviewing the most lively of its remi- 
niscences. 

The revolution in the whole apparatus, means, machinery, 

was entided " The New York Journal of Commerce," and was able to 
proclaim itself with truth the Largest journal in the world. For 25i 
years it had existed in a smaller size, but even in this infant stage had 
so far outrun all other journals in size (measuring, from the first, 816 
square inches) as to have earned the name of " the blanket sheet:" but 
this thriving baby had continued to grow, until at last, on March 1, 
1853, it came out in a sheet "comprising an area of 2057^ square 
inches, or 16| square feet." This was the monster sent over the At- 
lantic to myself; and I really felt it as some relief to my terror, when 
I found the editor protesting that the monster should not be allowed 
to grow any more. I presume that it was meant to keep the hotels in 
countenance ; for a journal on the old scale could not expect to make 
itself visible in an edifice that otFered accommodations to an army 



TRAVELLING. Sil} 

and dependences of that system — a revolution begun, 
carried through, and perfected within the period of my own 
personal experience — merits a word or two of iUustration 
in the most cursory memoirs that profess any attention at 
all to the shifting scenery and moving forces of the age, 
whether manifested in great effects or in little. And these 
particular effects, though little, when regarded in their 
separate details, are not little in their final amount. On the 
contrary, I have always maintained, that under a represen- 
tative government, where the great cities of the empire 
must naturally have the power, each in its proportion, of 
reacting upon the capital and the councils of the nation in 
so conspicuous a way, there is a result waiting on the final 
improvements of the arts of travelling, and of transmitting 
intelligence with velocity, such as cannot be properly ap- 
preciated in the absence of all historical experience. Con- 
ceive a state of communication between the centre and the 
extremities of a great people, kept up with a uniformity of 
reciprocation so exquisite as to imitate the flowing and 
ebbing of the sea, or the systole and diastole of the human 
heart ; day and night, waking and sleeping, not succeeding 
to each other with more absolute certainty than the acts of 
the metropolis and the controlling notice of the provinces, 
whether in the way of support or of resistance. Action 
and reaction from every point of the compass being thus 
perfect and instantaneous, we should then first begin to un- 
derstand, in a practical sense, what is meant by the unity of 
a political body, and we should approach to a more ade- 
quate appreciation of the powers which are latent in organ- 
ization. For it must be considered that hitherto, under the 
most complex organization, and that which has best at- 
tained its purposes, the national will has never been able to 
express itself upon one in a thousand of the public acts, 
simply because the national voice was lost in the distance, 



314 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

and could not collect itself through the time and the space 
rapidly enough to connect itself immediately with the 
evanescent measure of the moment. But, as the system 
of intercourse is gradually expanding, these bars of space 
and time are in the same degree contracting, until finally 
we may expect them altogether to vanish ; and then every 
part of the empire will react upon the whole with the power, 
life, and effect of immediate conference amongst parties 
brought face to face. Then first will be seen a political 
system truly organic — i. e., in which each acts upon all, 
and all react upon each ; and a new earth will arise from 
the indirect agency of this merely physical revolution. 
Already, in this paragraph, written twenty years ago, a 
prefiguring instinct spoke within me of some great secret 
yet to come in the art of distant communication. At pres- 
ent 1 am content to regard the electric telegraph as the 
oracular response to that prefiguration. But I still look for 
some higher and transcendent response. 

The reader whose birth attaches him to this present gen- 
eration, having known only macadamized roads, cannot 
easily bring before his imagination the antique and almost 
aboriginal state of things which marked our travelling sys- 
tem down to the end of the eighteenth century, and nearly 
through the first decennium of the present. A very few 
lines will suffice for some broad notices of our condition, in 
this respect, through the last two centnries. In the Parlia- 
ment war, (1642-6,) it is an interesting fact, but at the 
same time calculated to mislead the incautious reader, that 
some officers of distinction, on both sides, brought close 
carriages to head quarters ; and sometimes they went even 
upon the field of battle in these carriages, not mounting on 
horseback until the preparations were beginning for some 
important manoeuvre, or for a general movement. The 
same thing had been done throughout the Thirty Years 



TRAVELLING. ' 315 

war, both by the Bavarian, imperial, and afterwards by 
ihe Swedish officers of rank. And it marks the great 
diffusion of these luxuries about this era, that, on occasion 
of the reinstalment of two princes of Mecklenburg, who 
had been violently dispossessed by Wallenstein, upwards of 
eighty coaches mustered at a short notice, partly from the 
territorial nobility, partly from the camp. Precisely, how- 
ever, at military head quarters, and on the route of an 
army, carriages of this description were an available and a 
most useful means of transport. Cumbrous and unwieldy 
they were, as we know by pictures ; and they could not 
have been otherwise, for they were built to meet the roads. 
Carriages of our present light and reedy (almost, one might 
say, corky) construction would, on the roads of Germany 
or of England, in that age, have foundered within the first 
two hours. To our ancestors, such carriages would have 
seemed playthings for children. Cumbrous as the car- 
riages of that day were, they could not be more so than artil- 
ery or baggage wagons : where these could go, coaches 
could go. So that, in the march of an army, there was a 
perpetual guaranty to those who had coaches for the possi- 
bility of their transit. And hence, and not because the 
roads were at all better than they have been generally 
described in those days, we are to explain the fact, that 
both in the royal camp, in Lord Manchester's, and after- 
wards in General Fairfax's and Cromwell's, coaches were 
an ordinary part of the camp equipage. The roads, 
meantime, were as they have been described, viz., ditches, 
morasses, and sometimes channels for the course of small 
brooks. Nor did they improve, except for short reaches, 
and under peculiar local advantages, throughout that cen- 
tury. Spite of the roads, however, public carriages be- 
gan to pierce England, in various lines, from the era of 
1660. Circumstantial notices of these may be found in 



816 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Lord Auckland's (Sir Frederic Eden's) large work on the 
poor laws. That to York, for example, (two hundred 
miles,) took a fortnight in the journey, or about fourteen 
miles a day. But Chamberlayne, who had a personal 
knowledge of these public carriages, says enough to show 
that, if slow, they were cheap ; half a crown being the 
usual rate for fifteen miles, (i. e., 2d. a mile.) Public con- 
veyances, multiplying rapidly, could not but diffuse a gen- 
eral call for improved roads ; improved both in dimensions 
and also in the art of construction. For it is observable, 
that, so early as Queen Elizabeth's days, England, the 
most equestrian of nations, already presented to its inhab- 
itants a general system of decent bridle roads. Even at 
this day, it is doubtful whether any man, taking all hin- 
derances into account, and having laid no previous relays 
of horses, could much exceed the exploit of Carey, (after- 
wards Lord Monmouth,) a younojer son of the first Lord 
Hunsden, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth. Yet we must not 
forget that the particular road concerned in this exploit 
was the Great North Road, (as it is still called by way of 
distinction,) lying through Doncaster and York, between 
the northern and southern capitals of the island. But 
roads less frequented were tolerable as bridle roads ; whilst 
all alike, having been originally laid down with no view to 
the broad and ample coaches, from 1570 to 1700, scratched 
the panels on each side as they crept along. Even in the 
nineteenth century, I have known a case in the sequestered 
district of Egremont, in Cumberland, where a post chaise, 
of the common narrow dimensions, was obliged to retrace 
its route of fourteen miles, on coming to a bridge built in 
some remote age, when as yet post chaises were neither 
known nor anticipated, ^and, unfortunately, too narrow by 
three or four inches. In all the provinces of England 
when the soil was deep and adhesive, a worse evil beset the 



TRAVELLING. 317 

stately equipage. An Italian of rank, who has left a record 
of his perilous adventure, visited, or attempted to visit, 
Petworth, near London, (then a seat of the Percys, now of 
Lord Egremont,) about the year 1685. I forget how many 
times he was overturned within one particular stretch of 
five miles; but I remember that it was a subject of grati- 
tude (and, upon meditating a return by the same route, a 
subject of pleasing hope) to dwell upon the soft lying which 
was to be found in that good-natured morass. Yet this was, 
doubtless, a pet road, (sinful punister ! dream not that I 
glance at Pehvorth,) and an improved road. Such as this, 
I have good reason to think, were most of the roads in 
England, unless upon the rocky strata which stretch north- 
wards from Derbyshire to Cumberland and Northumberland. 
The public carriages were the first harbingers of a change 
for the better; as these grew and prospered, slender lines 
of improvement began to vein and streak the map. And 
Parliament began to show their zeal, though not always a 
corresponding knowledge, by legislating backwards and 
forwards on the breadth of wagon wheel tires, &c. But 
not until our cotton system began to put forth blossoms, not 
until our trade and our steam engines began to stimulate 
the coal mines, which in their turn stimulated them^ did any 
great energy apply itself to our roads. In my childhood, 
standing with one or two of my brothers and sisters at the 
front windows of my mother's carriage, I remember one 
unvarying set of images before us. The postilion (for so 
were all carriages then driven) was employed, not by 
fits and starts, but always and eternally, in quartering * — 
i. e., in crossing from side to side — according to the casual- 
ties of the ground. Before you stretched a wintry length 

* Elsewhere I have suggested, as the origin of this term, the French 
word cartayer, to manoeuvre so as to evade the ruts. 



318 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

of lane, with ruts deep enough to fracture the leg of a 
horse, filled to the brim with standing pools of rain water ; 
and the collateral chambers of these ruts kept from be- 
coming confluent by thin ridges, such as the Romans called 
lircB, to maintain the footing upon which lircc^ so as not to 
swerve, (or, as the Romans would say, delirare,) was a trial 
of some skill both for the horses and their postilion. It 
was, indeed, next to impossible for any horse, on such a 
narrow crust of separation, not to grow delirious in the 
Roman metaphor ; and the nervous anxiety, which haunted 
me when a child, was much fed by this very image so often 
before my eye, and the sympathy with which I followed 
the motion of the docile creature's legs. Go to sleep at 
the beginning of a stage, and the last thing you saw — wake 
up, and the first thing you saw — was the line of wintry 
pools, the poor off-horse planting his steps with care, and the 
cautious postilion gently applying his spur, whilst manoeu- 
vring across this system of grooves with some sort of science 
that looked like a gypsy's palmistry ; so equally unintelligible 
to me were his motions, in what he sought and in what he 
avoided. 

Whilst reverting to these remembrances of my childhood, 
I may add, by way of illustration, and at the risk of gossip- 
ing, which, after all, is not the worst of things, a brief notice 
of my very first journey. I might be then seven years 
old. A young gentleman, the son of a wealthy banker, 
had to return home for the Christmas holidays to a town in 
Lincolnshire, distant from the public school where he was 
pursuing his education about a hundred miles. The school 
was in the neighborhood of Greenhay, my father's house. 
There were at th^t time no coaches in that direction ; now 
(1833) there are many every day. The young gentleman 
advertised for a person to share the expense of a post 
chaise. Bj accident, I had an invitation of some standing 



TRAVELLING. 319 

to the same town, where I happened to have some female 
relatives of mature age, besides some youthful cousins. 
The two travellers elect soon heard of each other, and 
the arrangement was easily completed. It was my ear- 
liest migration from the paternal roof; and the anxieties 
of pleasure, too tumultuous, with some slight sense of 
undefined fears, combined to agitate my childish feelings. 
I had a vague, slight apprehension of my fellow-traveller, 
^\hom I had never seen, and whom my nursery maid, when 
dressing me, had described in no very amiable colors. 
But a good deal more I thought of Sherwood Forest, (the 
forest of Robin Hood,) which, as I had been told, we should 
cross after the night set in. At six o'clock I descended, 
and not, as usual, to the children's room, but, on this spe- 
cial morning of my life, to a room called the break- 
fast room ; where I found a blazing fire, candles lighted, 
and the whole breakfast equipage, as if for my mother, 
set out, to my astonishment, for no greater personage 
than myself. The scene being in England, and on a De- 
cember morning, I need scarcely say that it rained : the 
rain beat violently against the windows, the wind raved ; 
and an aged servant, who did the honors of the breakfast 
table, pressed me urgently to eat. I need not say that I 
had no appetite : the fulness of my heart, both from busy 
anticipation, and from the parting which was at hand, had 
made me incapable of any other thought or attention but 
such as pointed to the coming journey. All circumstances 
in travelling, all scenes and situations of a representative 
and recurring character, are indescribably affecting, con- 
nected, as they have been, in so many myriads of minds, 
more especially in a land which is sending off forever its 
flowers and blossoms to a clime so remote as that of India, 
whh heart-rending separations, and with farewells never to 
be repeated. But, amongst them all, none cleaves to my 



320 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

own feelings more indelibly, from having repeatedly been 
concerned, either as witness or as a principal party in its 
little drama, than the early breakfast on a wintry morning 
long before the darkness has given way, when the golden 
blaze of the hearth, and the bright glitter of candles, with 
female ministrations of gentleness more touching than on 
common occasions, all conspire to rekindle, as it were for 
a farewell gleam, the holy memorials of household affec- 
tions. And many have, doubtless, had my feelings ; for, I 
believe, few readers will ever forget the beautiful manner 
m which Mrs. Inchbald has treated such a scene in winding: 
up the first part of her " Simple Story," and the power 
with which she has invested it. 

Years, that seem innumerable, have passed since that 
December morning in my own life to Avhich I am now 
recurring ; and yet, even to this moment, I recollect the 
audible throbbing of heart, the leap and rushing of blood, 
which suddenly surprised me during a deep lull of the wind, 
when the aged attendant said, without hurry or agitation, 
but with something of a solemn tone, " That is the sound 

of wheels. I hear the chaise. Mr. H will be here 

directly." The road ran, for some distance, by a course 
pretty nearly equidistant from the house, so that the groan- 
ing of the wheels continued to catch the ear, as it swelled 
upon the wind, for some time without much alteration. At 
length a right-angled turn brought the road continually and 
rapidly nearer to the gates of the grounds, which had pur- 
posely been thrown open. At this point, however, a long 
career of raving arose ; all other sounds were lost ; and, 
for some time, I began to think we had been mistaken, when 
suddenly the loud trampling of horses' feet, as they whirled 
up the sweep below the windows, followed by a peal long 
and loud upon the bell, announced, beyond question, the 
summons for my departure. The door being thrown open, 



TRAVELLING. ' 321 

Steps were heard loud and fast ; and in the next moment, 
ushered by a servant, stalked forward, booted and fully- 
equipped, my travelling companion — if such a word can 
at all express the relation between the arrogant young 
blood, just fresh from assuming the toga virilis^ and a 
modest child of profound sensibilities, but shy and reserved 
beyond even English reserve. The aged servant, with 
apparently constrained civility, presented my mother's com- 
pliments to him, with a request that he would take breakfast 
This he hastily and rather peremptorily declined. Me, 
however, he condescended to notice with an approving nod, 
slightly inquiring if I were the young gentleman who shared 
his post chaise. But, without allowing time for an answer, 
and striking his boot impatiently with a riding whip, he 
hoped I was ready. " Not until he has gone up to my 
mistress," replied my old protectress, in a tone of some 
asperity. Thither I ascended. What counsels and direc- 
tions I might happen to receive at the maternal toilet, 
naturally 1 have forgotten. The most memorable circum- 
stance to me was, that I, who had never till that time 
possessed the least oj most contemptible coin, received, in 
a network purse, six glittering guineas, with instructions 

to put three immediately into Mr. H 's hands, and the 

others when he should call for them. 

The rest of my mother's counsels, if deep, were not 
long ; she, who had always something of a Roman firmness, 
shed more milk of roses, I believe, upon my cheeks than 
tears ; and why not ? What should there be to her corre- 
sponding to an ignorant child's sense of pathos, in a little 
journey of about a hundred miles ? Outside her door, how- 
ever, there awaited me some silly creatures, women of 
course, old and young, from the nursery and the kitchen, 
who gave, and who received, those fervent kisses which 
wait only upon love without awe and without disguise. 
21 



322 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

Heavens ! what rosaries might be strung for the memory 
of sweet female kisses, given without check or art, before 
one is of an age to value them ! And again, how sweet 
is the touch of female hands as they array one for a 
journey ! If any thing needs fastening, whether by pinning, 
tying, or any other contrivance, how perfect is one's confi- 
dence in female skill ; as if, by mere virtue of her sex and 
feminine instinct, a woman could not possibly fail to know 
the best and readiest way of adjusting every case that could 
arise in dress. Mine was hastily completed amongst them : 
each had a pin to draw from her bosom, in order to put 
something to rights about my throat or hands ; and a chorus 
of " God bless hims ! " was arising, when, from below, 
young Mephistopheles murmured an impatient groan, and 
perhaps the horses snorted. I found myself lifted into the 
chaise ; counsels about the night and the cold flowing in 
upon me, to which Mephistopheles hstened with derision or 
astonishment. I and he had each our separate corner ; and, 
except to request that I would draw up one of the glasses, 
I do not think he condescended to address one word to 
me until dusk, when we found ourselves rattling into Ches- 
terfield, having barely accomplished four stages, or forty or 
forty-two miles, in about nine hours. This, except on the 
Bath or great north roads, may be taken as a standard 
amount of performance, in 1794, (the year I am recording,) 
and even ten years later.* In these present hurrying and 
tumultuous days, whether time is really of more value, I 
cannot say ; but all people on the establishment of inns are 
required to suppose it of the most awful value. Nowadays, 

* It appears, however, from the Life of Hume, by my distinguished 
friend Mr. Hill Burton, that already, in the middle of the last century, 
the historian accomplished without difficulty six miles an hour with 
only a pair of horses. But this, it should be observed, was on the 
great Korth Road. 



TRAVELLING. 323 

(1833,) no sooner have the horses stopped at the gateway 
of a posting house than a summons is passed down to the 
stables ; and in less than one minute, upon a great road, the 
horses next in rotation, always ready harnessed when expect- 
ing to come on duty, are heard trotting down the yard. " Put- 
ting to " and transferring the luggage, (supposing your con- 
veyance a common post chaise,) once a work of at least 
thirty minutes, is now easily accomplished in three. And 
scarcely have you paid the ex-postilion before his successor 
is mounted ; the hostler is standing ready with the steps in 
his hands to receive his invariable sixpence ; the door is 
closed ; the representative waiter bows his acknowledgment 
for the house, and you are off at a pace never less than ten 
miles an hour ; the total detention at each stage not averaging 
above four minutes. Then, (i. e., at the latter end of the 
eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century,) half 
an hour was the minimum of time spent at each change of 
horses. Your arrival produced a great bustle of unloading 
and unharnessing; as a matter of course, you alighted and 
went into the inn ; if you sallied out to report progress, af- 
ter waiting twenty minutes, no signs appeared of any stir 
about the stables. The most choleric person could not much 
expedite preparations, which loitered not so much from any 
indolence in the attendants, as from faulty arrangements and 
total defect of forecasting. The pace was such as the roads 
of that day allowed ; never so much as six miles an hour, 
except upon a very great road, and then only by extra pay- 
ment to the driver. Yet, even under this comparatively mis- 
erable system, how superior was England, as a land for the 
traveller, to all the rest of the world, Sweden only excepted ! 
Bad as were the roads, and defective as were all the arrange- 
ments, still you had these advantages : no town so insignifi- 
cant, no posting house so solitary, but that at all seasons, 
except a contested election, it could furnish horses without 



324 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

delay, and without license to distress the neighboring farm- 
ers. On the worst road, and on a winter's day, with no more 
than a single pair of horses, you generally made out sixty 
miles ; even if it were necessary to travel through the night, 
you could continue to make way, although more slowly ; and 
finally, if you were of a temper to brook delay, and did not ex- 
act from all persons the haste or energy of Hotspurs, the whole 
system in those days was full of respectability and luxurious 
ease, and well fitted to renew the image of the home you 
had left, if not in its elegances, yet in all its substantial 
comforts. What cosy old parlors in those days ! low roofed, 
glowing with ample fires, and fenced from the blasts of 
doors by screens, whose foldings were, or seemed to be, in- 
finite. What motherly landladies ! won, how readily, to 
kindness the most lavish, by the mere attractions of sim- 
plicity and youthful innocence, and finding so much inter- 
est in the bare circumstance of being a traveller at a child- 
ish age. Then what bloommg young handmaidens ! how 
different from the knowing and worldly demireps of modern 
high roads ! And sometimes gray-headed, faithful waiters, 
how sincere and how attentive, by comparison with their 
flippant successors, the eternal " coming, sir, coming," of 
our improved generation ! 

Such an honest, old, butler-looking servant waited on us 
during dinner at Chesterfield, carving for me, and urging 
me to eat. Even Mephistopheles found his pride relax 
under the influence of wine ; and when loosened from this 
restraint, his kindness was not deficient. To me he showed 
it in pressing wine upon me, without stint or measure. The 
elegances which he had observed in such parts of my 
mother's establishment as could be supposed to meet his 
eye on so hasty a visit, had impressed him perhaps favor- 
ably towards myself; and could I have a little altered my 
age, or dismissed my excessive reserve, I doubt not that he 



TRAVELLING. 



325 



would have admitted me, in default of a more suitable 
comrade, to his entire confidence for the rest of the road. 
Dinner finished, and myself at least, for the first time in 
my childish life, somewhat perhaps overcharged with wine, 
the bill was called for, the waiter paid in the lavish style 
of antique England, and we heard our chaise drawing up 
under the gateway, — the invariable custom of those days, 
— by which you were spared the trouble of going into the 
street ; stepping from the hall of the inn right into your 
carriage. I had been kept back for a minute or so by the 
landlady and her attendant nymphs, to be dressed and 
kissed ; and, on seating myself in the chaise, which was 
well lighted with lamps, I found my lordly young principal 
in conversation with the landlord, first upon the price of 
oats, — which youthful horsemen always affect to inquire 
after with interest, — but, secondly, upon a topic more im- 
mediately at his heart — viz., the reputation of the road. 
At that time of day, when gold had not yet disappeared 
from the circulation, no traveller carried any other sort of 
money about him ; and there was consequently a rich en- 
couragement to highwaymen, which vanished almost entirely 
with Mr. Pitt's act of 1797 for restricting cash payments. 
Property which could be identified and traced was a perilous 
sort of plunder ; and from that time the free trade of the 
road almost perished as a regular occupation. At this 
period it did certainly maintain a languishing existence ; 
here and there it might have a casual run of success; and, 
as these local ebbs and flows were continually shifting, 
perhaps, after all, the trade might lie amongst a small num- 
ber of hands. Universally, however, the landlords showed 
some shrewdness, or even sagacity, in qualifying, according 
to the circumstances of the inquirer, the sort of credit which 
they allowed to the exaggerated ill fame of the roads. 
Returning on this very road, some months after, with a 



326 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

timid female relative, who put her questions with undis- 
guised and distressing alarm, the very same people, one 
and all, assured her that the danger was next to nothing. 
Not so at present : rightly presuming that a haughty cavalier 
of eighteen, flushed with wine and youthful blood, would 
listen with disgust to a picture too amiable and pacific of 
the roads before him, Mr. Spread Eagle replied with the 
air of one who knew more than he altogether liked to tell ; 
and looking suspiciously amongst the strange faces lit up by 
the light of the carriage lamps — " Why, sir, there have 
been ugly stories afloat; I cannot deny it ; and sometimes, 
you know, sir," — winking sagaciously, to which a knowing 
nod of assent was returned, — " it may not be quite safe 
to tell all one knows. But you can understand me. The 
forest, you are well aware, sir, is the forest : it never was 
much to be trusted, by all accounts, in my father's time, 
and I suppose will not be better in mine. But you must 
keep a sharp lookout ; and, Tom," speaking to the pos- 
tilion, " mind, when you pass the third gate, to go pretty 
smartly by the thicket." Tom replied in a tone of impor- 
tance to this professional appeal. General valedictions 
were exchanged, the landlord bowed, and we moved off for 
the forest. Mephistopheles had his travelling case of pistols. 
These he began now to examine ; for sometimes, said he, 
I have known such a trick as drawing the charge whilst one 
happened to be taking a glass of wine. Wine had unlocked 
his heart, — the prospect of the forest and the advancing 
uight excited him, — and even of such a child as myself 
he was now disposed to make a confidant. " Did you 
observe," said he, " that ill-looking fellow, as big as a camel, 
who stood on the landlord's left hand ? " Was it the man, 
I asked timidly, who seemed by his dress to be a farmer.? 
" Farmer, you call him ! Ah ! my young friend, that shows 
your little knowledge of the world. He is a scoundrel, 



TRAVELLING. 327 

the bloodiest of scoundrels. And so I trust to convince 
him before many hours are gone over our heads." Whilst 
saying this, he employed himself in priming his pistols; 
then, after a pause, he w^ent on thus : " No, my young 
friend, this alone shows his base purposes — his calling 
himself a farmer. Farmer he is not, but a desperate high- 
wayman, of vi^hich I have full proof. I watched his 
malicious glances whilst the landlord was talking ; and I 
could swear to his traitorous intentions." So speaking, he 
threw anxious glances on each side as we continued to ad- 
vance : we were both somewhat excited ; he by the spirit 
of adventure, I by sympathy with him — and both by wine. 
The wine, however, soon applied a remedy to its own 
delusions ; six miles from the town we had left, both of us 
were in a bad condition for resisting highwaymen with 
effect — being fast asleep. Suddenly a most abrupt halt 
awoke us, — Mephistopheles felt for his pistols, — the door 
flew open, and the lights of the assembled group announced 
to us that we had reached Mansfield. That night we went 
on to Newark, at which place about forty miles of our 
journey remained. This distance we performed, of course, 
on the following day, between breakfast and dinner. But it 
serves strikingly to illustrate the state of roads in England, 
whenever your affairs led you into districts a little retired 
from the capital routes of the public travelling, that, for 
one twentj'-mile stage, — viz., from Newark to Sleaford, — 
they refused to take us forward with less than four horses. 
This was neither a fraud, as our eyes soon convinced us, 
(for even four horses could scarcely extricate the chaise 
from the deep sloughs which occasionally seamed the road 
through tracts of two or three miles in succession,) nor was 
it an accident of the weather. In all seasons the same 
demand was enforced, as my female protectress found in 
conducting me back at a fine season of the year, and had 



328 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

always found in traversing the same route. The England 
of that date (1794) exhibited many similar cases. At 
present I know of but one stage in all England where a 
traveller, without regard to weight, is called upon to take 
four horses ; and that is at Ambleside, in going by the direct 
road to Carlisle. The first stage to Patterdale lies over the 
mountain of Kirkstone, and the ascent is not only toilsome, 
(continuing for above three miles, with occasional inter- 
missions,) but at times is carried over summits too steep for 
a road by all the rules of engineering, and yet too little 
frequented to offer any means of repaying the cost of 
smoothing the difficulties. 

It was not until after the year 1715 that the main im- 
provement took place in the English travelling system, so 
far as regarded speed. It is, in reality, to Mr. JMacadam 
that we owe it. All the roads in England, within a few 
years, were remodelled, and upon principles of Roman 
science. From mere beds of torrents and systems of ruts, 
they were raised universally to the condition and appear- 
ance of gravel walks in private parks or shrubberies. 
The average rate of velocity was, in consequence, exactly 
doubled — ten miles an hour being now generally accom- 
plished, instead of five. And at the moment when all 
further improvement upon this system had become hopeless, 
a new prospect was suddenly opened to us by railroads; 
which again, considering how much they have already ex- 
ceeded the maximum of possibility, as laid down by all 
engineers during the progress of the Manchester and Liv- 
erpool line, may soon give way to new males of locomo- 
tion still more astonishing to our preconceptions. 

One point of refinement, as regards the comfort of trav- 
ellers, remains to be mentioned, in which the improvement 
began a good deal earlier, perhaps by ten years, than in the 
construction of the roads. Luxurious as was the system 



TRAVELLING. 329 

ot English travelling at all periods, after the general estab- 
lishment of post chaises, it nnust be granted that, in the 
circumstance of cleanliness, there was far from being that 
attention, or that provision for the traveller's comfort, which 
might have been anticipated from the general habits of the 
country. I, at all periods of my life a great traveller, was 
witness to the first steps and the whole struggle of this rev- 
olution. Marechal Saxe professed always to look under 
his bed, applying his caution chiefly to the attempts of rob- 
bers. Now, if at the greatest inns of England you had, 
in the days I speak of, adopted this marechal's policy of 
reconnoitring, what would you have seen ? Beyond a 
doubt, you would have seen what, upon all principles of 
seniority, was entitled to your veneration, viz., a dense ac- 
cumulation of dust far older than yourself. A foreign 
author made some experiments upon the deposition of dust, 
and the rate of its accumulation, in a room left wholly un- 
disturbed. If I recollect, a century would produce a stra- 
tum about half an inch in depth. Upon this principle, I 
conjecture that much dust which I have seen in inns, dur- 
ing the first four or five years of the present century, must 
have belonged to the reign of George II. It was, however, 
upon travellers by coaches that the full oppression of the 
old vicious system operated. The elder Scaliger mentions, 
as a characteristic of the English in his day, (about 1530,) 
a horror of cold water; in which, however, there must 
have been some mistake.* Nowhere could he and his 



* " Some mistake^ — The mistake was possibly this : what littie 
water for ablution, and what little rags called towels, a foreigner ever 
sees at home will at least be always within reach, from the continental 
practice of using the bod room for the sitting room. But in England 
our plentiful means of ablution are kept in the background, Scaliger 
should have asked for a bed room : the surprise was, possibly, not at 
his wanting water, but at his wanting it in a dining room. 



330 AXJTOBIOGl APHIC SKETCHES. 

foreign companions obtain the luxury of cold water for wash 
ing their hands either before or after dinner. One day he 
and his party dined with the lord chancellor ; and now, 
thought he, for very shame they will allow us some means' 
of purification. Not at all ; the chancellor viewed this 
outlandish novelty with the same jealousy as others. How- 
ever, on the earnest petition of Scaliger, he made an order 
that a basin or other vessel of cold water should be pro- 
duced. His household bowed to this judgment, and a slop 
basin w^as cautiously introduced. " What ! " said Scaliger, 
" only one, and we so many ? " Even that one contained 
but a teacup full of water : but the great scholar soon 
found that he must be thankful for what he had got. It 
had cost the whole strength of the English chancery to pro- 
duce that single cup of water; and, for that day, no 
man in his senses could look for a second. Pretty much 
the same struggle, and for the same cheap reform, com- 
menced about the year 1805-6. Post-chaise travellers 
could, of course, have what they liked ; and generally they 
asked for a bed room. It is of coach travellers I speak. 
And the particular innovation in question commenced, as 
was natural, with the mail coach, which, from the much 
higher scale of its fares, commanded a much more select 
class of company. I was a party to the very earliest at- 
tempts at breaking ground in this alarming revolution. 
Well do I remember the astonishment of some waiters, the 
indignation of others, the sympathetic uproars which spread 
to the bar, to the kitchen, and even to the stables, at the 
first opening of our extravagant demands. Sometimes 
even the landlady thought the case worthy of her interfer- 
ence, and came forward to remonstrate with us upon our 
unheard-of conduct. But gradually we made way. Like 
Scaliger, at first we got but one basin amongst us, and that 
Jne was brought into the breakfast room ; but scarcely had 



TRAVELLING. 331 

two years revclved before we began to see four, and all 
appurtenances, arranged duly in correspondence to the num- 
ber of inside passengers by the mail ; and, as outside trav- 
elling was continually gaining ground amongst the wealth- 
ier classes, more comprehensive arrangements were often 
made ; though, even to this day, so much influence sur- 
vives, from the original aristocratic principle upon which 
public carriages were constructed, that on the mail coaches 
there still prevails the most scandalous inattention to the 
comfort, and even to the security, of the outside passengers : 
a slippery glazed roof frequently makes the sitting a matter 
of efTort and anxiety, whilst the little iron side rail of four 
inches in height serves no one purpose but that of bruising 
the thigh. Concurrently with these reforms in the system 
of personal cleanliness, others were silently making way 
through all departments of the household economy. Dust, 
from the reign of George II., became scarcer ; gradually it 
came to bear an antiquarian value : basins lost their grim 
appearance, and looked as clean as in gentlemen's houses. 
And at length the whole system was so thoroughly ventilated 
and purified, that all good inns, nay, generally speaking, 
even second-rate inns, at this day, reflect the best features, 
as to cleanliness and neatness, of well-managed private 
establishments. 



CHAPTER XII. 
MY BROTHER 

The reader who may have accompanied me in these 
wandering memorials of my own life and casual experi- 
ences, will be aware, that in many cases the neglect of 
chronological order is not merely permitted, but is in fact 
to some degree inevitable : there are cases, for instance, 
which, as a whole, connect themselves with my own life at 
so many different eras, that, upon any chronological princi- 
ple of position, it would have been difficult to assign them 
a proper place ; backwards or forwards they must have 
leaped, in whatever place they had been introduced ; and 
in their entire compass, from first to last, never could have 
been represented as properly belonging to any one present 
time, whensoever that had been selected : belonging to 
every place alike, they would belong, according to the 
proverb, to no place at all ; or, (reversing that proverb,) 
belonging to no place by preferable right, they would, in 
fact, belong to every place, and therefore to this place. 

The incidents I am now going to relate come under this 
rule ; for they form part of a story which fell in with my 
own life at many different points. It is a story taken from 
the life of my own brother ; and I dwell on it with the 
more willingness, because it furnishes an indirect lesson 

332 



MY BROTHER. 333 

upon a great principle of social life, now and for many- 
years back struggling for its just supremacy — the principle 
that all corporal punishments whatsoever, and upon whom- 
soever inflicted, are hateful, and an indignity to our common 
nature, which (with or without our consent) is enshrined in 
the person of the sufferer. Degrading liim^ they degrade 
us. I will not here add one word upon the general thesis, 
but go on to the facts of this case ; which, if all its incidents 
could be now recovered, was perhaps as romantic as any 
that ever yet has tried the spirit of fortitude and patience 
in a child. But its moral interest depends upon this — that, 
simply out of one brutal chastisement, arose naturally the 
entire series of events which so very nearly made ship- 
wreck of all hope for one individual, and did in fact poison 
the tranquillity of a whole family for seven years. 

My next brother, younger by about four years than my- 
self, (he, in fact, that caused so much affliction to the Sultan 
Amurath,) was a boy of exquisite and delicate beauty — del- 
icate, that is, in respect to its feminine elegance and bloom ; 
for else (as regards constitution) he turned out remarkably 
robust. In such excess did his beauty flourish during child- 
hood, that those who remember him and myself at the pub- 
lic school at Bath will also rernember the ludicrous moles- 
tation in the streets (for to him it icas molestation) which it 
entailed upon him — ladies stopping continually to kiss him. 
On first coming up to Bath from Greenhay, my mother oc- 
cupied the very apartments on the North Parade just quitted 
by Edmund Burke, then in a decaying condition, though he 
did not die (I believe) till 1797. That state of Burke's health, 
connected with the expectation of finding him still there, 
brought for some weeks crowds of inquirers, many of whom 
saw the childish Adonis, then scarcely seven years old, 
and inflicted upon him what he viewed as the martyrdom 
of their caresses. Thus began a persecution which con- 



334 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

tinned as long as his years allowed it. The most brilliant 
complexion that could be imagined, the features of an An- 
tinous, and perfect symmetry of figure at that period of his 
life, (afterwards he lost it,) made him the subject of never- 
ending admiration to the whole female population, gentle 
and simple, who passed him in the streets. In after days, 
he had the grace to regret his own perverse and scornful 
coyness. But, at that time, so foolishly insensible was he 
to the honor, that he used to kick and struggle with all his 
might to liberate himself from the gentle violence which 
was continually offered ; and he renewed the scene (so elab- 
orately painted by Shakspeare) of the conflicts between 
Venus and Adonis. For two years this continued a subject 
of irritation the keenest on the one side, and of laughter on 
the other, between my brother and his plainer school- 
fellows. Not that we had the slightest jealousy on the sub- 
ject — far from it ; it struck us all (as it generally does 
strike boys) in the light of an attaint upon the dignity of a 
male, that he should be subjected to the caresses of women, 
without leave asked ; this was felt to be a badge of child- 
hood, and a proof that the object of such caressing tender- 
ness, so public and avowed, must be regarded in the light 
of a baby — not to mention that the very foundation of all 
this distinction, a beautiful face, is as a male distinction re- 
garded in a very questionable light by multitudes, and often 
by those most who are the possessors of that distinction. 
Certainly that was the fact in my brother's case. Not one 
of us couIg feel so pointedly as himself the ridicule of his 
situation ; nor did he cease, when increasing years had lib- 
erated him from that female expression of delight in his 
beauty, to regard the beauty itself as a degradation ; nor 
could he bear to be flattered upon it; though, in reality, it 
did him service in after distresses, when no other endow- 
ment whatsoever would have been availing. Often, in fact, 



MY BROTHER. 335 

do men's natures sternly contradict the promise of their 
features ; for no person would have believed that, under the 
blooming loveliness of a Narcissus, lay shrouded a most 
heroic nature ; not merely an adventMrous courage, but with 
a capacity of patient submission to hardship, and of wres- 
tling with calamity, such as is rarely found amongst the en- 
dowments of youth. I have reason, also, to think that the 
state of degradation in which he believed himself to have 
passed his childish years, from the sort of public petting 
which I have described, and his strong recoil from it as an 
insult, went much deeper than was supposed, and had much 
to do in his subsequent conduct, and in nerving him to tlie 
strong resolutions he adopted. He seemed to resent, as an 
original insult of nature, the having given him a false index 
of character in his feminine beauty, and to take a pleasure 
in contradicting it. Had it been in his power, he would 
have spoiled it. Certain it is, that, from the time he reached 
his eleventh birthday, he had begun already to withdraw 
himself from the society of all other boys, — to fall into long 
fits of abstraction, — and to throw himself upon his own re- 
sources in a way neither usual nor necessary. Schoolfel- 
lows of his own age and stanJing — those, even, who were 
the most amiable — he shunned; and, many years after his 
disappearance, I found, in his handwriting, a collection of 
fragments, couched in a sort of wild lyrical verses, present- 
ing, unquestionably, the most extraordinary evidences of a 
proud, self-sustained mind, consciously concentrating his 
own hopes in himself, and abjuring the rest of the world, 
that can ever have emanated from so young a person ; since, 
upon the largest allowance, and supposing them to have been 
written on the eve of his quitting England, they must have 
been written at the age of twelve. I have often speculated 
on the subject of these mysterious compositions ; they were 
of a nature to have proceeded rather from some mystical 



336 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

quietist, such as Madame Guyon, if with this rapt devotion 
one can suppose the union of a rebellious and murmuring 
ambition. Passionate apostrophes there were to nature and 
the powers of nature ; and what seemed strangest of all 
was, that, in style, not only were they free from all tumor 
and inflation which might have been looked for in so young 
a writer, but were even wilfully childish and colloquial in a 
pathetic degree — in fact, in point of tone, allowing for the 
difference between a narrative poem and a lyrical, they 
somewhat resemble that beautiful poem * of George Her- 
bert, entitled Love Unknown, in which he describes sym- 
bolically to a friend, under the form of treacherous ill 
usage he had experienced, the religious processes by which 
his soul had been weaned from the world. The most obvi- 
ous solution of the mystery would be, to suppose these frag- 
ments to have been copied from some obscure author ; but, 
besides that no author could have remained obscure in this 
age of elaborate research, who had been capable of sighs 
(for such I may call them) drawn up from such well-like 
depths of feeling, and expressed with such fervor and sim- 
plicity of language, there was another testimony to their 
being the productions of him who owned the penmanship ; 
which was, that some of the papers exhibited the whole 
process of creation and growth, such as erasures, substitu- 
tions, doubts expressed as to this and that form of expression, 
together with references backwards and forwards. Now, 
that the handwriting was my brother's, admitted of no doubt 
whatsoever. I go on with his story. In 1800, my visit to 
Ireland, and visits to other places subsequently, separated 
me from him for above a year. In 1801, we were at very 



* This poem, from great admiration of its mother English, and to 
illustrate some ideas upon style, Mr. Coleridge republished in his 
•' Biographia Literaria." 



MY BROTHER. 337 

different schools — I in the highest class of a great public 
school, he at a very sequestered parsonage on a wild moor 
(Horwich Moor) in Lancashire. This situation, probably, 
fed and cherished his melancholy habits ; for he had no 
society except that of a younger brother, who would give 
him no disturbance at all. The development of our national 
resources had not yet gone so far as absolutely to extermi- 
nate from the map of England everything like a heath, a 
breezy down, (such as gave so peculiar a character to the 
counties of Wilts, Somerset, Dorset, &c.,) or even a village 
common. Heaths were yet to be found in England, not so 
spacious, indeed, as the landes of France, but equally wild 
arid romantic. In such a situation my brother lived, and 
under the tuition of a clergyman, retired in his habits, and 
even ascetic, but gentle in his manners. To that I can speak 
myself; for in the winter of 1801 I dined with him, and 
found that his yoke was, indeed, a mild one ; since, even 
to my youngest brother H., a headstrong child of seven, he 
used no stronger remonstrance, in urging him to some essen- 
tial point of duty, than "Do he persuaded, sir.'''' On an- 
other occasion I, accompanied by a friend, slept at Mr. J.'s : 
we were accidentally detained there through the greater 
part of the following day by snow ; and, to the inexpressible 
surprise of my companion, a mercantile man from Man- 
chester, for a considerable time after breakfast the reverend 
gentleman persisted in pursuing my brother from room to 
room, and at last from the ground floor up to the attics, hold- 
ing a book open, (which turned out to be a Latin grammar ;) 
each of them (pursuer and pursued) moving at a tolerably 
slow pace, my brother H. silent; but Mr. J., with a voice 
of adjuration, solemn and even sad, yet kind and concilia- 
tory, singing out at intervals, "Do be persuaded, sir ! " 
" It is your welfare I seek ! " " Let your own interest, sir, 
plead in this matter between us ! " And so the chase 
22 



338 ATJTOBIOGRAPniC SKETCHES. 

continued, ascending and descending, up to the very garrets^ 
down to the very cellars, then steadily revolving from front 
to rear of the house ; but finally with no result at all. The 
spectacle reminded me of a groom attempting to catch a 
coy pony by holding out a sieve containing, or pretending 
to contain, a bribe of oats. Mrs. J., the reverend gentle- 
man's wife, assured us that the same process went on 
at intervals throughout the week ; and in any case it was 
clearly good as a mode of exercise. Now, such a master, 
though little adapted for the headstrong H., was the very 
person for the thoughtful and too sensitive K,. Search the 
island through, there could not have been found another sit- 
uation so suitable to my brother's wayward and haughty 
nature. The clergyman was learned, quiet, absorbed in 
his studies ; humble and modest beyond the proprieties of 
his situation, and treating my brother in all points as a 
companion ; whilst, on the other hand, my brother was not 
the person to forget the respect due, by a triple title, to a 
clergyman, a scholar, and his own preceptor — one, besides, 
who so little thought of exacting it. How happy might all 
parties have been — what suffering, what danger, what years 
of miserable anxiety might have been spared to all who 
were interested — had the guardians and executors of my 
father's will thought fit to " let well alone " ! But, '''■per star 
meglioj'*^ * they chose to remove my brother from this gentle 
recluse to an active, bustling man of the world, the very anti- 
pole in character. What might be the pretensions of this 
gentleman to scholarship, I never had any means of judging ; 
and, considering that he must now, (if living at all,) at a dis- 
tance of thirty-six years, be gray headed, I shall respect his 



* From the well-known Italian epitaph — " Stava bene ; ma, per star 
meglio, sto qui " — I was well ; but, because I would be better than 
well, I am — where you see. 



MY BROTHER. 339 

age so far as to suppress bis name. He was of a class now an- 
nually declining (and I hope rapidly) to extinction. Thanks 
be to God, in this point at least, for the dignity of human 
nature, that, amongst the many, many cases of reform des- 
tined eventually to turn out chimerical, this one, at least, 
never can be defeated, injured, or eclipsed. As man grows 
more intellectual, the power of managing him by his intel- 
lect and his moral nature, in utter contempt of all appeals 
to his mere animal instincts of pain, must go on pari passu. 
And, if a "Te Beum^^'' or an "0, Jubilate!''^ were to be 
celebrated by all nations and languages for any one advance 
and absolute conquest over wrong and error won by human 
nature in our times, — yes, not excepting 

" The bloody writing by all nations torn " — 

the abolition of the commerce in slaves, — to my thinking, 
that festival should be for the mighty progress made towards 
the suppression of brutal, bestial modes of punishment. 
Nay, I may call them worse than bestial ; for a man of any 
goodness of nature does not willingly or needlessly resort 
to the spur or the lash with his horse or with his hound. 
But, with respect to man, if he will not be moved or won 
over by conciliatory means, — by means that presuppose 
him a reasonable creature, — then let him die, confounded 
in his own vileness ; but let not me, let not the man (that 
is to say) who has him in his power, dishonor himself by 
inflicting punishments, violating that grandeur of human 
nature which, not in any vague rhetorical sense, but upon 
a religious principle of duty, (viz., the scriptural doctrine 
that the human person is " the temple of the Holy Ghost,") 
ought to be a consecrated thing in the eyes of all good men ; 
and of this we may be assured, — this is more sure than day 
or night, — that, in proportion as man is honored, exalted. 



340 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

trussed, in that proportion will he become more worthy of 
honor, of exaltation, of trust. 

This schoolmaster had very different views of man and 
his nature. He not only thought that physical coercion 
was the one sole engine by which man could be managed, 
but — on the principle of that common maxim which de- 
clares that, when two schoolboys meet, with powers at all 
near to a balance, no peace can be expected between them 
until it is fairly settled which is the master — on that same 
principle he fancied that no pupil could adequately or pro- 
portionably reverence his master until he had settled the 
precise proportion of superiority in animal powers by which 
his master was in advance of himself. Strength of blows 
only could ascertain that ; and, as he was not very nice 
about creating his opportunities, as he plunged at once 
" in medias res,''' and more especially when he saw or sus- 
pected any rebellious tendencies, he soon picked a quarrel 
with my unfortunate brother. Not, be it observed, that he 
much cared for a well-looking or respectable quarrel. No. 
I have been assured that, even when the most fawning ob- 
sequiousness had appealed to his clemency, in the person 
of some timorous new-comer, appalled by the reports he 
had heard, even in such cases, (deeming it wise to im- 
press, from the beginning, a salutary awe of his Jovian 
thunders) he made a practice of doing thus : He would 
speak loud, utter some order, not very clearly, perhaps, as 
respected the sound, but with perfect perplexity as regarded 
the sense, to the timid, sensitive boy upon whom he intended 
to fix a charge of disobedience. " Sir, if you please, what 
was it that you said ? " " What was it that I said ? What ! 
playing upon my words ? Chopping logic ? Strip, sir ; 
strip this instant." Thenceforward this timid boy became 
a serviceable instrument in his equipage. Not only was 
he a proof, even without cooperation on the master's part, 



MY BROTHER. 341 

that extreme cases of submission could not insure mercy, 
but also he, this boy, in his own person, breathed forth, at 
intervals, a dim sense of awe and worship — the religion 
of fear — towards the grim Moloch of the scene. Hence, 
as by electrical conductors, was conveyed throughout every 
region of the establishment a tremulous sensibility that 
vibrated towards the centre. Different, O Rowland Hill ! 
are the laws of thy establishment ; far other are the echoes 
heard amid the ancient halls of Bruce.* There it is pos- 
sible for the timid child to be happy — for the child destined 
to an early grave to reap his brief harvest in peace. Where- 
fore were there no such asylums in those days ? Man 
flourished then, as now, in beauty and in power. Where- 
fore did he not put forth his power upon establishments that 
might cultivate happiness as well as knowledge ? Where- 
fore did no man cry aloud, in the spirit of Wordsworth, — 

" Ah, what avails heroic deed 1 
What liberty ? if no defence 
Be won for feeble innocence. 
Father of all ! though wilful manhood read 
His punishment in soul distress, 
Grant, to the mo7-n of life its natural blessedness " 1 

Meantime, my brother R., in an evil hour, having been re- 
moved from that most quiet of human sanctuaries, having 
forfeited that peace which possibly he was never to retrieve, 
fell (as I have said) into the power of this Moloch. And 
this Moloch upon him illustrated the laws of his establish- 

* This was not meant assuredly as any advertisement of an estab- 
lishment, which could not by all reports need any man's praise, but 
was written under a very natural impulse derived from a recent visit 
to the place, and under an unaffected sympathy with the spirit of free- 
dom and enjoyment that seemed to reign amongst the young people. 



3-12 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

merit ; him also, the gentle, the beautiful, but also the 
proud, the haughty, he beat, kicked, trampled on ! 

In two hours from that time, my brother was on the road 
to Liverpool. Painfully he made out his way, having not 
much money, and with a sense of total abandonment which 
made him feel that all he might have would prove little 
enough for his purposes. 

My brother went to an inn, after his long, long journey 
to Liverpool, footsore — (for he had walked through four 
days, and, from ignorance of the world, combined with ex- 
cessive shyness, — O, how shy do people become from 
pride ! — had not profited by those well-known incidents 
upon English high roads — return post chaises, stage 
coaches, led horses, or wagons) — footsore, and eager for 
sleep. Sleep, supper, breakfast in the morning, — all these 
he had ; so far his slender finances reached ; and for these 
he paid the treacherous landlord ; who then proposed to 
him that they should take a walk out together, by way of 
looking at the public buildings and the docks. It seems 
the man had noticed my brother's beauty, some circum- 
stances about his dress inconsistent with his mode of travel- 
ling, and also his style of conversation. Accordingly, he 
wiled him along from street to street, until they reached 
the Town Hall. " Here seems to be a fine building," said 
this Jesuitical guide, — as if it had been some new Pompeii, 
some Luxor or Palmyra, that he had unexpectedly lit upon 
amongst the undiscovered parts of Liverpool, — " here seems 
to be a fine building ; shall we go in and ask leave to look 
at it ? " My brother, thinking less of the spectacle than 
the spectator, whom, in a wilderness of man, naturally he 
wished to make his friend, consented readily. In they 
went ; and, by the merest accident, Mr. Mayor and the town 
council were then sitting. To them the insidious landlord 
communicated privately an account of his suspicions. He 



MY BROTHER. 343 

himself conducted my brother, under pretence of discover- 
mg the best station for picturesque purposes, to the particu- 
lar box for prisoners at the bar. This was not suspected 
by the poor boy, not even when Mr. Mayor began to ques- 
tion him. He still thought it an accident though doubtless 
he blushed excessively on being questioned, and questioned 
so impertinently, in public. The object of the mayor and 
of other Liverpool gentlemen then present was, to ascertain 
my brother's real rank and family ; for he persisted in rep- 
resenting himself as a poor wandering boy. Various means 
were vainly tried to elicit this information; until at length 
— like the wily Ulysses, who mixed wiih his peddler's bud- 
get of female ornaments and attire a few arms, by way of 
tempting Achilles to a self-detection in the court of Ly- 
comedes — one gentleman counselled the mayor to send 
for a Greek Testament. This was done; the Testament 
was presented open at St. John's Gospel to my brother, and 
he was requested to say whether he knew in what language 
that book was written ; or whether, perhaps, he could furnish 
them with a translation from the page before him. R., in 
his confusion, did not read the meaning of this appeal, and 
fell into the snare ; construed a few verses ; and immedi- 
ately was consigned to the care of a gentleman, who won 
from him by kindness what he had refused to importunities 
or menaces. His family he confessed at once, but not his 
school. An express was therefore forwarded from Liver- 
pool to our nearest male relative — a military man, then by 
accident on leave of absence from India. He came over, 
took my brother back, (looking upon the whole as a boyish 
frolicof no permanent importance,) made some stipulations 
in his behalf for indemnity from punishment, and immedi- 
ately returned home. Left to himself, the grim tyrant of 
the school easily evaded the stipulations, and repeated his 
brutalities more fiercely than before — now acting in the 
double spirit of tyranny and revenge. 



344 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

In a few hours, my brother was again on the road to 
Liverpool. But not on this occasion did he resort to any 
inn, or visit any treacherous hunter of the picturesque. Fie 
offered himself to no temptations now, nor to any risks. 
Kight onwards he went to the docks, addressed himself to 
a grave, elderly master of a trading vessel, bound upon 
a distant voyage, and instantly procured an engagement. 
The skipper was a good and sensible man, and (as it 
turned out) a sailor accomplished in all parts of his profes- 
sion. The ship which he commanded was a South Sea 
whaler, belonging to Lord Grenville — whether lying at 
Liverpool or in the Thames at that moment, I am not sure. 
However, they soon afterwards sailed. 

For somewhat less than three years my brother continued 
under the care of this good man, who was interested by his 
appearance, and by some resemblance which he fancied in 
his features to a son whom he had lost. Fortunate, in- 
deed, for the poor boy was this interval of fatherly super- 
intendence ; for,, under this captain, he was not only 
preserved from the perils which afterw^ards beseiged him, 
until his years had made him more capable of confronting 
them, but also he had thus an opportunity, which he 
improved to the utmost, of making himself acquainted with 
the two separate branches of his profession — navigation 
and seamanship, qualifications which are not very often 
united. 

After the death of this captain, my brother ran through 
many wild adventures ; until at length, after a severe 
action, fought off the coast of Peru, the armed merchant- 
man in which he then served was captured by pirates. 
Most of the crew were massacred. My brother, on account 
of tne important services he could render, was spared ; and 
with these pirates, cruising under a black flag, and perpe- 
trating unnumbered atrocities, he was obliged to sail for 



MT BROTHER. 345 

the next two years ; nor could he, in all that period, find 
any opportunity for effecting his escape. 

During this long expatriation, let any thoughtful reader 
imagine the perils of every sort which beseiged one so 
young, so inexperienced, so sensitive, and so haughty ; 
perils to his life ; (but these it was the very expression of 
his unhappy situation, were the perils least to be mourned 
for ;) perils to his good name, going the length of absolute 
infamy — since, if the piratical ship had been captured by 
a British man-of-war, he might have found it impossible to 
clear himself of a voluntary participation in the bloody 
actions of his shipmates; and, on the other hand, (a case 
equally probable in the regions which they frequented,) 
supposing him to have been captured by a Spanish guarda 
costa^he would scarcely have been able, from his igno- 
rance of the Spanish language, to draw even a momentary 
attention to the special circumstances of his own situation; 
he would have been involved in the general presumptions 
of the case, and would have been executed in a summary 
way, upon the prima facie evidence against him, that he 
did not appear to be in the condition of a prisoner ; and, if 
his name had ever again reached his country, it would 
have been in some sad list of ruffians, murderers, traitors 
to their country ; and even these titles, as if not enough in 
themselves, aggravated by the name of pirate, which at 
once includes them all, and surpasses them all. These 
were perils sufficiently distressing at any rate ; but last of 
all came others even more appalling — the perils of moral 
contamination, in that excess which might be looked for 
from such associates; not, be it recollected, a few wild 
notions or lawless principles adopted into his creed of 
practical ethics, but that brutal transfiguration of the entire 
character, which occurs, for instance, in the case of the 
young gypsy son of Effie Deans; a change making it 



346 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

impossible to rely upon the very holiest instincts of the 
moral nature, and consigning its victim to hopeless repro- 
bation. Murder itself might have lost its horrors to one 
who must have been but too familiar with the spectacle 
of massacre by wholesale upon unresisting crews, upon 
passengers enfeebled by sickness, or upon sequestered vil- 
lagers, roused from their slumbers by the glare of confla- 
gration, reflected from gleaming cutlasses and from the 
faces of demons. This fear it was — a fear like this, as I 
have often thought — which must, amidst her other woes, 
have been the Aaron woe that swallowed up all the rest to 
the unhappy Marie Antoinette. This must have been the 
sting of death to her maternal heart, the grief paramount, 
the "crowning" grief — the prospect, namely, that her 
royal boy would not be dismissed from the horrors of 
royalty to peace and humble innocence ; but that his fair 
cheek would be ravaged by vice as well as sorrow ; that 
he would be tempted into brutal orgies, and every mode of 
moral pollution ; until, like poor Constance with her young 
Arthur, but for a sadder reason, even if it were possible 
that the royal mother should see her son in " the courts of 
heaven," she would not know again one so fearfully trans- 
figured. This prospect for the royal Constance of revolu- 
tionary France was but too painfully fulfilled, as we are 
taught to guess even from the faithful records of the 
Duchesse d'Angouleme. The young dauphin, {it has been 
said, 1837,) to the infamy of his keepers, was so trained 
as to become loathsome for coarse brutality, as well as for 
habits of uncleanliness, to all who approached him — one 
purpose of his guilty tutors being to render royalty and 
august descent contemptible in his person. And, in fact, 
they were so far likely to succeed in this purpose, for the 
moment, and to the extent of an individual case, that, upon 
that account alone, but still more for the sake of the poor 



BIY BROTHER. 347 

child, the most welcome news with respect to him — him 
whose birth * had drawn anthems of exultation from twen- 
ty-five millions of men — was the news of his death. And 
what else can well be ex jected for children suddenly with- 

* To those who are open to the impression of omens, there is a most 
striking- one on record with respect to the birth of this ill-fated prince, 
not less so than the falling off of the head from the cane of Charles I. 
at his trial, or the same king's striking a medal, bearing an oak tree, 
(prefiguring the oak of Boscobel,) with this prophetic inscription, " Seris 
nepotibus umbram" At the very moment when (according to imme- 
morial usage) the birth of a child was in the act of annunciation to 
the great officers of state assembled in the queen's bed chamber, and 
when a private signal fi-om a lady had made known the glad tidings 
that it was a dauphin, (the first child having been a princess, to the 
signal disappointment of the nation ; and the second, who was a boy, 
having died,) the whole frame of carved woodwork at the back of 
the queen's bed, representing the crown and other regalia of France, 
with the Bourbon lilies, came rattling down in ruins. There is 
another and more direct ill omen connected, apparently, with the 
birth of this prince ; in fact, a distinct prophecy of his ruin, — a proph- 
ecy that he should survive his father, and yet not reign, — which is so 
obscurely told, that one knows not in what light to view it ; and 
especially since Louis XVIII., who is the original authority for it, 
obviously confounds the first dauphin, who died before the calamities 
of his family commenced, with the second. As to this second, who is 
of course the prince concerned in the references of the text, a new 
and most extraordinary interest has begun to invest his tragical story 
in this very month of April, 18.53 ; at least, it is now first brought 
before universal Christendom. In the monthly journal of Putnam, 
(published in New York,) the No. for April contains a most interesting 
memoir upon the subject, signed T. H. Hanson. Naturally, it indis- 
posed most readers to put faith in any fresh pretensions of this nature, 
that at least one false dauphin had been pronounced such by so unde- 
niable a judge as the Duchesse d'Angouldme. Meantime, it is made 
probable enough by Mr. Hanson that the true dauphin did not die in 
the year 1795 at the Temple, bu: was personated by a boy unknown,- 
that two separate parties had an equal interest in sustaining this fraud, 
and did sustain it ; but one wou.d hesitate to believe whether at the 
price of murdering a celebrated physician ; that they had the prince 



348 AUTOBIOGB APHIC SKETCHES. 

drawn from parental tenderness, and thrown upon their 
own guardianship at such an age as nine or ten, and under 
the wilful misleading of perfidious guides ? But, in my 
brother's case, all the adverse chances, overwhelming as 

conveyed secretly to an Indian settlement in Lower Canada, as a 
situation in which French, being the prevailing language, would 
attract no attention, as it must have done in most other parts of North 
America ; that the boy was educated and trained as a missionary cler- 
gyman ; and finally, that he is now acting in that capacity under the 
name of Eleazar Williams — perfectly aware of the royal pretensions 
put foi-ward on his behalf, but equally, through age (being about 69) 
and through absorption in spiritual views, indifferent to these preten- 
sions. It is admitted on all hands that the Prince de Joinville had an 
interview with Eleazar Williams a dozen years since — the prince 
alleges through mere accident; but this seems improbable ; and Mr 
Hanson is likely to be right in supposing this visit to have been a pre- 
concerted one, growing out of some anxiety to test the reports current, 
so far as they were gounded upon resemblances in Mr. Williams's fea- 
tures to those of the Bourbon and Austrian families. The most 
pathetic fact is that of the idiocy common to the dauphin and Mr. 
Eleazar Williams, It is clear from all the most authentic accounts 
of the young prince that idiocy was in reality stealing over him — 
due, doubtless, to the stunning nature of the calamities that overwhelmed 
his family ; to the removal from him by tragical deaths, in so rapid a 
succession, of the Princesse de Lamballe, of his aunt, of his father, 
of his mother, and others whom most he had loved ; to his cruel sep- 
aration from his sister ; and to the astounding (for him naturally 
incompi-ehensible) change that had come over the demeanor and the 
language of nearly all the people placed about the persons of himself 
and his family. An idiocy resulting from what must have seemed a 
causeless and demoniac conspiracy would be more likely to melt away 
under the sudden transfer to kindness and the gayety of forest life 
than any idiocy belonging to original organic imbecility, Mr. Williams 
describes his own confusion of mind as continuing up to his four- 
teenth year, and all things which had happened in earlier years as 
gleaming through clouds of oblivion, and as painfully perplexing ; but 
otherwise he shows no desire to strengthen the pretensions made for 
nimself by any reminiscences piercing these clouds that could point 
specially to France or to royal experiences. 



MY BROTHER. 349 

*hey seemed, were turned aside by some good angel; all 
had failed to harm him ; and from the fiery furnace he 
came out unsinged. 

I have said that he would not have appeared to any 
capturing ship as standing in the situation of prisoner 
amongst the pirates, nor was he such in the sense of being 
confined. He moved about, when on board ship, in free- 
dom ; but he was watched, never trusted on shore, unless 
under very peculiar circumstances ; and tolerated at all 
only because one accomplishment made him indispensable 
to the prosperity of the ship. Amongst the various parts 
of nautical skill communicated to my brother by his first 
fatherly captain, was the management of chronometers. 
Several had been captured, some of the highest value, in 
the many prizes, European or American. My brother 
happened to be perfect in the skill of managing them ; 
and, fortunately for him, no other person amongst them 
had that skill, even in its lowest degree. To this one 
qualification, therefore, (and ultimately to this only,) he 
was indebted for both safety and freedom ; since, though 
he might have been spared in the first moments of car- 
nage from other considerations, there is little doubt that, 
in some one of the innumerable brawls which followed 
through the years of his captivity, he would have fallen 
a sacrifice to hasty impulses of anger or wantonness, had 
not his safety been made an object of interest and vigilance 
to those in command, and'to all who assumed any care for 
the general welfare. Much, therefore, it was that he owed 
to this accomplishment. Still, there is no good thing with- 
out its alloy ; and this great blessing brought along with it 
something worse than a dull duty — the necessity, in fact, 
of facing fears and trials to which the sailor's heart is pre- 
eminently sensible. All sailors, it is notorious, are super- 
stitious ; partly, I suppose, from looking out so much upon 



350 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

the wilderness of waves, empty of all h.aman life , for 
mighty solitudes are generally fear-haunted and fear- 
peopled ; such, for instance, as the solitudes of forests, 
where, in the absence of human forms and ordinary human 
sounds, are discerned forms more dusky and vague, not 
referred by the eye to any known type, and sounds imper- 
fectly intelligible. And, therefore, are all German coal 
burners, woodcutters, &c., superstitious. Now, the sea is 
often peopled, amidst its ravings, with what seem innumer- 
able human voices — such voices, or as ominous, as what 
were heard by Kubla Khan — " ancestral voices prophesy- 
ing war ; " oftentimes laughter mixes, from a distance, 
(seeming to come also from distant times, as well as dis- 
tant places,) with the uproar of waters ; and doubtless 
shapes of fear, or shapes of beauty not less awful, are at 
times seen upon the waves by the diseased eye of the 
sailor, in other cases besides the somewhat rare one of 
calenture. This vast solitude of the sea being taken, 
therefore, as one condition of the superstitious fear found 
so commonly among sailors, a second mtiy be the perilous 
insecurity of their own lives, or (if the lives of sailors, 
after all, by means of large immunities from danger in 
other shapes are not so insecure as is supposed, though, 
by the way, it is enough for this result that to themselves 
they seem so) yet, at all events, the insecurity of the ships 
in which they sail. In such a case, in the case of battle, 
and in others where the empire of chance seems absolute, 
there the temptation is greatest to dally with supernatural 
oracles and supernatural means of consulting them. Fi- 
nally, the interruption habitually of all ordinary avenues 
to information about the fate of their dearest relatives ; the 
consequent agitation which must often possess those who 
are reentering upon home waters ; and the sudden burst, 
upon stepping ashore, of heart-shaking news in long accu- 



MY BROTHER. 351 

mulated arrears, -r- these are circumstances which dispose 
the mind to look out for relief towards signs and omens as 
one way of breaking the shock by dim anticipations. Rats 
leaving a vessel destined to sink, although the political 
application of it as a name of reproach is purely modern, 
must be ranked among the- oldest of omens ; and perhaps 
the most sober-minded of men might have leave to be 
moved with any augury of an ancient traditional order, 
such as had won faith for centuries, applied to a fate so 
interesting as that of the ship to which he was on the point 
of committing himself. Other causes might be assigned, 
causative of nautical superstition, and tending to feed it. 
But enough. It is well known that the whole family of 
sailors is superstitious. My brother, poor Pink, (this was 
an old household name which he retained amongst us from 
an incident of his childhood,) was so in an immoderate de- 
gree. Being a great reader, (in fact, he had read every 
thing in his mother tongue that was of general interest,) 
he was pretty well aware how general was the ridicule 
attached in our times to the subject of ghosts. But this — 
nor the reverence he yielded otherwise to some of those 
writers who had joined in that ridicule — any more had 
unsettled his faith in their existence than the submission 
of a sailor in a religious sense to his spiritual counsellor 
upon the false and fraudulent pleasures of luxury can ever 
disturb his remembrance of the virtues lodged in rum or 
tobacco. His own unconquerable, unanswerable experi- 
ence, the blank realities of pleasure and pain, put to flight 
all arguments whatsoever that anchor only in his under- 
standing. Pink used, in arguing the case with me, to ad- 
mit that ghosts might be questionable realities in our 
hemisphere ; but " it's a different thing to the suthard of 
the line." And then he would go on to tell me of his own 
fearful experience ; in particular of one many times re- 



352 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

newed, and investigated to no purpose by parties of men 
communicating from a distance upon a system of concerted 
signals, in one of the Gallapagos Islands. These islands, 
wnich were visited, and I think described, by Dampier, 
and therefore must have been an asylum to the buccaneers 
and flibustiers * in the latter part of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, were so still to their more desperate successors, the 
pirates, at the beginning of the nineteenth ; and for the 
same reason — the facilities they offer (rare in those seas) 
for procuring wood and water. Hither, then, the black flag 
often resorted ; and here, amidst these romantic solitudes, — 
islands untenanted by man, — oftentimes it lay furled up for 
weeks together ; rapine and murder had rest for a season, 
and the bloody cutlass slept within its scabbard. When 
this happened, and when it became known beforehand that 
it would happen, a tent was pitched on shore for my brother, 
and the chronometers were transported thither for the period 
of their stay. 

The island selected for this purpose, amongst the many 
equally open to their choice, might, according to circum- 
stances, be that which offered the best anchorage, or that 
from which the reembarkation was easiest, or that which 
allowed the readiest access to wood and water. But for 
some, or all these advantages, the particular island most 
generally honored by the piratical custom and " good will " 
was one known to American navigators as " The Wood- 
cutter's Island." There was some old tradition — and I 



* " Flibustiers:'' — This word, which is just now revolving upon us 
in connection with the attempts on Cuba, &c., is constantly spelt by 
our own and the American journals as Jillihustiers and fillibusteros. 
But the true word of nearly two centuries back amongst the old original 
race of sea robbers (French and English) that made irregular war 
upon the Spanish shipping and maritime towns was that which ^ 
have here retained. 



MY BROTHER. 853 

know not but it was a tradition dating from the times of 
Dampier — that a Spaniard or an Indian settler in tl:iis 
island (relying, perhaps, too entirely upon the protection of 
perfect solitude) had been murdered in pure wantonness 
by some of the lawless rovers who frequented this solitary 
archipelago. Whether it were from some peculiar atrocity 
of bad faith in the act, or from the sanctity of the man, or 
the deep solitude of the island, or with a view to the peculiar 
edification of mariners in these semi-Christian seas, so 
however, it was, and attested by generations of sea vaga 
bonds, (for most of the armed reamers in these ocean Zaaras 
at one time were of a suspicious order,) that every night 
duly as the sun went down and the twilight began to prevail 
a sound arose — audible to other islands, and to every ship 
lying quietly at anchor in that neighborhood — of a wood 
cutter's axe. Sturdy were the blows, and steady the sue 
cession in which they followed : some even fancied they 
could hear that sort of groaning respiration which is made 
by men who use an axe, or by those who in towns ply the 
'' three-man beetle " of Falstaff, as paviers ; echoes they 
certainly heard of every blow, from the profound woods 
and the sylvan precipices on the margin of the shores ; 
which, however, should rather indicate that the sounds were 
not supernatural, since, if a visual object, falling under 
hvper-physical or cata-physical laws, loses its shadow, by 
parity of argument, an audible object, in the same circum- 
stances, should lose its echo. But this was the story ; and 
amongst sailors there is as little variety of versior.s in telling 
any true sea story as there is in a log book, cr in " The 
Flying Dutchman:" literatim fidelity is, with a sailor, a 
point at once of religious ^-^ith and worldly honor. The 
close of the story was — that after, suppose, ten or twelve 
minutes of hacking and hewing, a horrid crash was heard, 
announcing that the tree, if tree it were, that never yet wa? 
23 



354 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

made visible to daylight search, had yielded to the old 
woodman's persecution. It was exactly the crash, so fjxmiliar 
to many ears on board the neighboring vessels, which ex- 
presses the harsh tearing asunder of the fibres, caused by 
the weight of the trunk in falling ; beginning slowly, in- 
creasing rapidly, and terminating in one rush of rending. 
This over, — one tree felled " towards his winter store," — 
there was an interval ; man must have rest ; and the ol I 
woodman, after working for more than a century, must want 
repose. Time enough to begin again after a quarter of an 
hour's relaxation. Sure enough, in that space of time, 
again began, in the words of Comus, " the wonted roar 
amid the woods." Agam the blows became quicker, as the 
catastrophe drew nearer; again the final crash resounded ; 
and again the mighty echoes travelled through the solitary 
forests, and were taken up by all the islands near and far, 
like Joanna's laugh amongst the Westmoreland hills, to the 
astonishment of the silent ocean. Yet, wherefore should 
the ocean be astonished ? — he that had heard this nightly 
tumult, by all accounts, for more than a century. My 
brother, however, poor Pink, loas astonished, in good ear- 
nest, being, in that respect, of the genus attonitorum ; and 
as often as the gentlemen pirates steered their course for 
the Gallapagos, he would sink in spirit before the trials he 
might be sunmioned to face. No second person was ever 
put on shore with Pink, lest poor Pink and he might become 
jovial over the liquor, and the chronometers be broken or 
neglected ; for a considerable quantity of spirits was ne- 
cessarily landed, as well as of provisions, because some- 
times a sudden change of weather, or the sudden ap- 
pearance of a suspicious sail, might draw the ship off the 
island for a fortnight. My brother could have pleaded his 
fears without shame ; but he had a character to maintain 
with the sailors : he was respected equally for his seaman- 



MY BROTHER. 355 

ship and his shipmanship,* By the way, when it is opn- 
sidered that one half of a sailor's professional science refers 
him to the stars, (though it is true the other half refers him 
to the sails and shrouds of a ship,) just as, in geodesical 
operations, one part is referred to heaven and one to earth, 
when this is considered, another argument arises for the 
superstition of sailors, so far as it is astrological. They 
who know (but know the on without knowning the Sia it) 
that the stars have much to do in guiding their own move- 
ments, which are yet so far from the stars, and, to all 
appearance, so little connected with them, may be excused 
for supposing that the stars are connected astrologically 
with human destinies. But this by the way. The sailors, 
looking to Pink's double skill, and to his experience on shore, 
(more astonishing than all beside, being experience gath- 
ered amongst ghosts,) expressed an admiration which, to 
one who' was also a sailor, had too genial a sound to be 
sacrificed, if it could be maintained at any price. There- 
fore it was that Pink still clung, in spite of his terrors, to 
his shore appointment. But hard was his trial ; and many 
a time has he described to me one effect of it, when too 



^ '■'■ Seamamhij) and shipmansliipP — These are '. vo functions of a 
sailor seldom separated in the mind of a landsman. The conducting 
a ship (causing her to choose a right path) through the ocean ; that 
is one thing. Then there is the management of the ship within her- 
self, the trimming of her sails, &c., (causing her to keep the line 
chosen:) that is another tiling. The first is called seamanship; the 
second might be called shipmanship, but is, I believe, called naviga- 
tion. They are perfectly distinct ; one man rai'ely has both in per- 
fection. Both may be illustrated from the rudder. The question is, 
suppose at the Cape of Good Hope, to steer for India: trust the 
rudder to him, as a seaman, who knows the passage whether within 
or without Madagascar. The question is to avoid a sunk rock : 
trust the rudder to him, as a navigator, who understands the art of 
steering to a nicety. 



356 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

long continued, or combined with darkness too intense The 
woodcutter would begin his operations soon after the sun 
had set ; but uniformly, at that time, his noise was less. 
Three hours after sunset it had increased ; and generally 
at midnight it was greatest, but not always. Sometimes 
the case varied thus far : that it greatly increased towards 
three or four o'clock in the morning ; and, as the sound 
grew louder, and thereby seemed to draw nearer, poor Pink'* 
ghostly panic grew insupportable ; and he absolutely crepi 
from his pavilion, and its luxurious comforts, to a point ot 
rock — a promontory — about half a mile off, from which 
he could see the ship. The mere sight of a human abode, 
though an abode of ruffians, comforted his panic. With 
the approach of daylight, the mysterious sounds ceased. 
Cockcrow there happened to be none, in those islands of 
the Gallapagos, or none in that particular island ; though 
many cocks are heard crowing in the woods of America, 
and these, perhaps, might be caught by spiritual senses ; 
or the woodcutter may be supposed, upon Hamlet's prin- 
ciple, either scenting the morning air, or catching the 
sounds of Christian matin bells, from some dim convent, in 
the depth of American forests. However, so it was ; the 
woodcutter's axe began to intermit about the earliest ap- 
proach of dawn ; and, as light strengthened, it ceased 
entirely. At nine, ten, or eleven o'clock in the forenoon 
the whole appeared to have been a delusion; but towards 
sunset it revived in credit ; during twilight it strengthened ; 
and, very soo^ afterwards, superstitious panic was again 
seated on her throne. Such were the fluctuations of the 
case. Meantime, Pink, sitting on his promontory in early 
dawn, and consoling his terrors by looking away from the 
mighty woods to the tranquil ship, on board of which (in 
spite of her secret black flag) the whole crew, murderers 
and all, were sleeping peacefully — he, a beautiful English 



MY BROTHER. 357 

boy, chased away to the antipodes from one early home 
by his sense of wounded honor, and from his immediate 
home by superstitious fear, recalled to my mind an image 
and a situation that had been beautifully sketched by Miss 
Bannerman in " Basil," one of the striking (though, to 
rapid readers, somewhat unintelligible) metrical tales pub- 
lished early in this century, entitled " Tales of Supersti- 
tion and Chivalry." Basil is a " rude sea boy," desolate 
and neglected from infancy, but with feelings profound 
from nature, and fed by solitude. He dwells alone in a 
rocky cave ; but, in consequence of some supernatural 
terrors connected with a murder, arising in some way (not 
very clearly made out) to trouble the repose of his home^ 
he leaves it in horror, and rushes in the gray dawn to the 
seaside rocks ; seated on which, he draws a sort of con- 
solation for his terrors, or of sympathy with his wounded 
heart, from that mimicry of life which goes on forever 
amongst the raving waves. 

From the Gallapagos, Pink went often to Juan (or, as he 
chose to call it, after Dampier and others, John) Fernan- 
dez. Very lately, (December, 1837,) the newspapers of 
America informed us, and the story was current for full 
nine days, that this fair island had been swallowed up by 
an earthquake ; or, at least, that in some way or other it had 
disappeared. Had that story proved true, one pleasant 
bower would have perished, raised by Pink as a memorial 
expression of his youthful feelings either towards De Foe, 
or his visionary creature, Robinson Crusoe — but rather, 
perhaps, towards the substantial Alexander Selkirk ; for it 
was raised on some spot known or reputed by tradition to 
have been one of those most occupied as a home by Selkirk 
I say, " rather towards Alexander Selkirk;" for there is 
a difficulty to the judgment in associating Robinson Cru- 
soe with this lovely island of the Pacific, and a difficulty 



358 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

even to the fancy. Why, it is hard to guess, or through 
what perverse contradiction to the facts, De Foe chose to 
place the shipwreck of Robinson Crusoe upon the eastern 
side of the American continent. Now, not only was this 
in direct opposition to the realities of the case upon which 
he built, as first reported (I believe) by Woodes Rogers, 
from the log book of the Duke and Duchess, — (a privateer 
fitted out, to the best of my remembrance, by the Bristol 
merchants, two or three years before the peace of Utrecht,) 
and so far the mind of any man acquainted with these 
circumstances was staggered, in attempting to associate 
this eastern wreck of Crusoe with this western island, — but 
a worse obstacle than that, because a moral one, is this, 
that, by thus perversely transferring the scene from the 
Pacific to the Atlantic, De Foe has transferred it from a 
quiet and sequestered to a populous and troubled sea, — the 
Fleet Street or Cheapside of the navigating world, the 
great throughfare of nations, — and thus has prejudiced the 
moral sense and the fancy against his fiction still more 
inevitably than his judgment, and in a way that was perfecly 
needless ; for the change brought along with it no shadow 
of compensation. 

My brother's wild adventures amongst these desperate 
sea rovers were afterwards communicated in long letters to 
a female relative ; and, even as letters, apart from the fear- 
ful burden of their contents, I can bear witness that they 
had very extraordinary merit. This, in fact, was the happy 
result of writing from his heart; feeling profoundly what 
he communicated, and anticipating the profoundest sympa- 
thy with all that he uttered from her whom he addressed. 
A man of business, who opened some of these letters, in 
his character of agent for my brother's five guardians, and 
who had not any special interest in the affair, assured me 
that, throughout the whole course of his life, he had never 



MY BROTHER. g-C) 

real any thing so affecting, from tlie facts tliey contained, 
and from the sentiments which they expressed ; above all 
he yearning for that England which he remembered as 
the land of h,s youthful pleasures, but also of his youthful 
degrada„o„s Three of the guardians were present at the 
reading of these letters, and were all affected to tears, not- 
withstandmg they had been irritated to the uttermost by the 
course which both myself and my brother had pursued -a 
course which seemed to argue some defect of judgment, or 
of reasonable kindness, in themselves. These letters I 
hope, are still preserved, though they have been lon<r 're- 
moved from my control. Thinking of them, and thei°r ex- 
traordmary merit, I have often been led to believe that every 
post town (and many times in the course of a month) 
carries out numbers of beautifully-written letters, and more 
from women than from men ; not that men are to be sup- 
posed less capable of writing good letters,- and, in foct 
amongst all the celebrated letter writers of past or preseni 
times, a large overbalance happens to have been men, - but 
that more frequently women write from their hearts; and 
the veiy same cause operates to make female letters good 
which operated at one period to make the diction of Roman 
ladies more pure than that of orators or professional oulti- 
vators of the Kotmn language -and which, at another 
period, m the Byzantine court, operated to preserve the 
purity of the mother idiom within the nurseries and the 
female drawing rooms of the palace, whilst it was corrupt- 
ed in the forensic standards and the academic -in the 
standards of the pulpit and the throne. 

With respect to Pink's yearning for England, that had 
been partially gratified in some part of his long exile- 
twice, as we learned long afterwards, he had landed in 
i^ngland ; but such was his haughty adherence to his pur- 
pose, and such his consequent terror of being discovered 



360 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

and reclaimed by his guardians, that he never attempted to 
communicate with any of his brothers or sisters. There 
he was wrong ; me they should have cut to pieces before I 
would have betrayed him. I, like him, had been an obsti- 
nate recusant to what I viewed as unjust pretensions of 
authority ; and, having been the first to raise the standard 
of revolt, had been taxed by my guardians with having 
seduced Pink by my example. But that was untrue ; Pink 
acted for himself. However, he could know little of all 
this ; and he traversed England twice, without making 
an overture towards any communication with his friends. 
Two circumstances of these journeys he used to mention ; 
both were from the port of London (for he never contem- 
plated London but as a port) to Liverpool ; or, thus far I 
may be wrong, that one of the two might be (in the return 
order) from Liverpool to London. On the first of these 
journeys, his route lay through Coventry ; on the other, 
through Oxford and Birmingham. In neither case had he 
started with much money ; and he was going to have retired 
from the coach at the place of supping on the first night, 
(the journey then occupying two entire days and two 
entire nights,) when the passengers insisted on paying for 
him : that was a tribute to his beauty — not yet extinct. 
He mentioned this part of his adventures somewhat shyly, 
whilst going over them with a sailor's literal accuracy ; 
though, as a record belonging to what he viewed as child- 
ish years, he had ceased to care about it. On the other 
journey his experience was different, but equally testified 
to the spirit of kindness that is every where abroad. He 
had no money, on this occasion, that could purchase even 
a momentary lift by a stage coach : as a pedestrian, he haa 
travelled down to Oxford, occupying two days in the fifty- 
four or fifty-six miles which then measured the road from 
London, and sleeping in a farmer's barn, without leave 



MY BROTHER. 361 

asked. Wearied and depressed in spirits, he had reached 
Oxford, hopeless of any aid, and with a deadly shame at 
the thouofht of askino; it. Bat, somewhere in the High 
Street, — and, according to his very accurate sailor's de- 
scription of that noble street, it must have been about the 
entrance of All Souls' College, — he met a gentleman, a 
gownsman, who (at the very moment of turning into the 
college gate) looked at Pink earnestly, and then gave him 
a guinea, saying at the time, " I know what it is to be in 
your situation. You are, a schoolboy, and you have run 
away from your school. Well, I was once in your situa- 
tion, and I pity you." The kind gownsman, who wore a 
velvet cap with a silk gown, and must, therefore, have 
been what in Oxford is called a gentleman commoner, gave 
him an address at some college or other, (Magdalen, he 
fancied, in after years,) where he instructed him to call 
before he quitted Oxford. Had Pink done this, and had he 
frankly communicated his whole story, very probably he 
would have received, not assistance merely, but the best 
advice for guiding his future motions. His reason for not 
keeping the appointment was simply that he was nervously 
shy, and, above all things, jealous of being entrapped by 
insidious kindness into revelations that might prove danger- 
ously circumstantial. Oxford had a mayor ; Oxford had a 
corporation ; Oxford had Greek Testaments past all count- 
ing ; and so, remembering past experiences, Pink held it 
to be the wisest counsel that he should pursue his route on 
foot to Liverpool. That guinea, however, he used to say, 
saved him from despair. 

One circumstance affected me in this part of Pink's 
story. I was a student in Oxford at that time. By com- 
paring dates, there was no doubt whatever that I, who held 
my guardians in abhorrence, and, above all things, admired 
my brother for his conduct, might have rescued him at this 



362 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

point of his youthful trials, four years before the fortunate 
catastrophe of his case, from the calamities which awaited 
him. This is felt generally to be the most distressing form 
of human blindness — the case when accident brings two 
fraternal hearts, yearning for reunion, into almost touching 
neighborhood, and then, in a moment after, by the differ- 
ence, perhaps, of three inches in space, or three seconds in 
time, will separate them again, unconscious of their brief 
neighborhood, perhaps forever. In the present case, how- 
ever, it may be doubted whether this unconscious rencontre 
and unconscious parting in Oxford ought to be viewed as 
a misfortune. Pink, it is true, endured years of suffering, 
four, at least, that might have been saved by this seasonable 
rencontre ; but, on the other hand, by travelling through his 
misfortunes with unabated spirit, and to their natural end, 
he won experience and distinctions that else he would have 
missed. His further history was briefly this : — 

Somewhere in the River of Plate he had effected his 
escape from the pirates ; and a long time after, in 1807, 1 
believe, (I wrhe without books to consult,) he joined the 
storming party of the English at Monte Video. Here he 
happened fortunately to fall under the eye of Sir Home 
Popham ; and Sir Home forthwith rated my brother as a 
midshipman on board his own ship, which was at that time, 
I think, a fifty-gun ship — the Diadem. Thus, by merits 
of the most appropriate kind, and without one particle of 
interest, my brother passed into the royal navy. His 
nautical accomplishments were now of the utmost impor- 
tance to him ; and, as often as he shifted his ship, which 
(to say the truth) was far too often, — for his temper was 
fickle and delighting in change, — so often these accom* 
plishments were made the basis of very earnest eulogy. I 
have read i vast heap of certificates vouching for Pink's 
qualifications as a sailor in the highest terms, and from 



MY BROTHER. 363 

several of the most distinguished officers in the service. 
Early in his career as a midshipman, he suflered a morti- 
fying interruption of the active Ufe which had long since 
become essential to his comfort. He had contrived to get 
appointed on board a fire ship, the Prometheus, (chiefly 
with a wish to enlarge his experience by this variety of 
naval warfare,) at the time of the last Copenhagen expedi- 
tion, and he obtained his wish ; for the Prometheus had a 
very distinguished station assigned her on the great night 
of bombardment, and from her decks, I believe, was made 
almost the first effectual trial of the Congreve rockets. 
Soon after the Danish capital had fallen, and whilst the 
Prometheus was still cruising in the Baltic, Pink, in com- 
pany with the purser of his ship, landed on the coast of 
Jutland, for the purpose of a morning's sporting. It seems 
strange that this should have been allowed upon a hostile 
shore ; and perhaps it was not allowed, but might have 
been a thoughtless abuse of some other mission shore- 
wards. So it was, unfortunately ; and one at least of the 
two sailors had reason to rue the sporting of that day for 
eighteen long months of captivity. They were perfectly 
unacquainted with the localities, but conceived themselves 
able at any time to make good their retreat to the boat, by 
means of fleet heels, and arms sufficient to deal with any 
opposition of the sort they apprehended. Venturing, how- 
ever, too far into the country, they became suddenly aware 
of certain sentinels, posted expressly for the benefit of 
chance English visitors. These men did not pursue, but 
they did worse, for they fired signal shots ; and, by the 
time our two thoughtless Jack tars had reached the shore, 
they saw a detachment of Danish cavalry trotting their 
horses pretty coolly down in a direction for the boat. 
Feeling confident of their power to keep ahead of the 
pirsuit, the sailors amused themselves with various sallies 



364 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

of nautical wit ; and Pink, in particular, was just telling 
them to present his dutiful respects to the crown prince, 
and assure him that, but for this lubberly interruption, he 
trusted to have improved his royal dinner by a brace of 
birds, when — sight of blank confusion ! — all at once 
they became aware that between themselves and their 
boat lay a perfect network of streams, deep watery holes, 
requiring both time and local knowledge to unravel. The 
purser hit upon a course which enabled him to regain the 
boat ; but I am not sure whether he also was not captured. 
Poor Pink was, at all events ; and, through seventeen or 
eighteen months, bewailed this boyish imprudence. At 
the end of that time there was an exchange of prisoners, 
and he was again serving on board various and splendid 
frigates. Wyborg, in Jutland, was the seat of his Danish 
captivity ; and such was the amiableness of the Danish 
character, that, except for the loss of his time, to one who 
was aspiring to distinction and professional honor, none 
of the prisoners who were on parole could have had much 
reason for complaint. The street mob, excusably irritated 
with England at that time, (for, without entering on the 
question of right or of expedience as regarded that war, 
it is notorious that such arguments as we had for our 
unannounced hostilities could not be pleaded openly by the 
English cabinet, for fear of compromising our private 
friend and informant, the King of Sweden,) the mob, there- 
fore, were rough in their treatment of the British prisoners : 
at night, they would pelt them with stones ; and here and 
there some honest burgher, who might have suffered griev- 
ously in his property, or in the person of his nearest 
friends, by the ruin inflicted upon the Danish commercial 
shipping, or by the dreadful havoc made in Zealand, would 
show something of the same bitter spirit. But the great 
body of the richer and more educated inhabitants showed 



MY BROTHER. 365 

the most hospitable attention to all who justified that sort 
of notice by their conduct. And their remembrance of 
these English friendships was not fugitive ; for, through 
long years after my brother's death, I used to receive let- 
ters, written in the Danish, (a language which I had at- 
tained in the course of my studies, and which I have since 
endeavored to turn to account in a public journal, for some 
useful purposes of research,) from young men as well as 
women in Jutland — letters couched in the most friendly 
terms, and recalling to his remembrance scenes and inci» 
dents which sufficiently proved the terms of fraternal 
affection upon which he had lived amongst these public 
enemies ; and some of them I have preserved to this day, 
as memorials that do honor, on different considerations, to 
both parties alike.* 

^ For this little parenthetical record of ray brother's early history, 
the exact chronology of the several items in the case may possible be 
now in-ecoverable ; but any error must be of trivial importance. His 
two pedestrian journeys between London and Liverpool occurred, I 
believe, in the same year — viz., after the death of the friendly captain, 
and during the last risit of his ship to England. The capture of Pink 
by the pirates took place after the ship's return to the Pacific. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
PREMATURE MANHOOD. 

My last two chapters, very slenderly connected with 
Birmingham, are yet made to rise out of it ; the one out 
of Birmingham's own relation to the topic concerned, (viz., 
Travellings) and the other (viz.. My Brother) out of 
its relation to all possible times in my earlier life, and, 
therefore, why not to all possible places ? Any ivhere in- 
troduced, the chapter was partially out of its place ; as 
well then to introduce it in Birmingham as elsewhere. 
Somewhat arbitrary episodes, therefore, are these two 
last chapters ; yet still endurable as occurring in a work 
confessedly rambling, and whose very duty lies in the 
pleasant paths of vagrancy. Pretending only to amuse my 
reader, or pretending chiefly to that, however much I may 
have sought, or shall seek, to interest him occasionally 
through his profounder affections, I enjoy a privilege of 
neglecting harsher logic, and connecting the separate sec- 
tions of these sketches, not by ropes and cables, but by 
threads of aerial gossamer. 

This present chapter, it may seem, promises something 
of the same episodical or parenthetic character. But in 
reality it does not. I am now returning into the main cur- 
rent of my narrative, although I may need to linger for a 

366 



PREMATURE MANHOOD. 3G7 

moment upon a past anecdote. I have mentioned already, 
that, on inquiring at the Birmingham post office for a letter 
addressed to myself, I found one directing me to join my 
sister Mary at Laxton, a seat of Lord Carbery's in North- 
amptonshire, and giving me to understand, that, during my 
residence at this place, some fixed resolution would be 
taken and announced to me in regard to the future disposal 
of my time, during the two or three years before I should 
be old enough on the English system for matriculating at 
Oxford or Cambridge. In the poor countries of Europe, 
where they cannot afford double sets of scholastic estab- 
lishments, — having, therefore, no splendid schools, such as 
are, in fact, peculiar to England, — they are compelled to 
throw the duties of such schools upon their universities ; 
and consequently you see boys of thirteen and fourteen, or 
even younger, crowding such institutions, which, in fact, 
they ruin for all higher functions. But England, whose 
regal establishments of both classes emancipate her from 
this dependency, sends her young men to college not until 
they have ceased to be boys — not earliei', therefore, than 
eighteen. 

But when, by what test, by what indication, does man- 
hood commence ? Physically by one criterion, legally by 
another, morally by a third, intellectually by a fourth — 
and all indefinite. Equator, absolute equator, there is 
none. Between the two spheres of youth and age, perfect 
and imperfect manhood, as in all analogous cases, there is 
no strict line of bisection. The change is a large process, 
accomplished within a large and corresponding space ; 
having, perhaps, some central or equatorial line, but lying, 
like that of our earth, between certain tropics, or limits 
widely separated. This intertropical region may, and 
generally does, cover a number of years ; and, therefore, it 
is hard to say, even for an assigned case, by any tolerable 



368 ATJTOBIOGKAPHIC SKETCHES. 

approximation, at what precise era it would be reasonable 
to describe the individual as having ceased to be a boy, 
and as having attained his inauguration as a man. Physi- 
cally, we know that there is a very large latitude of differ- 
ences, in the periods of human maturity, not merely 
between individual and individual, but also between nation 
and nation ; differences so great, that, in some southern 
regions of Asia, we hear of matrons at the age of twelve. 
And though, as Mr. Sadler rightly insists, a romance of 
exaggeration has been built upon the facts, enough remains 
behind of real marvel to irritate the curiosity of the physi- 
ologist as to its efficient, and, perhaps, of the philosopher 
as to its final cause. Legally and politically, that is, con- 
ventionally, the differences are even greater on a compari- 
son of nations and eras. In England we have seen senators 
of mark and authority, nay, even a prime minister, the 
haughtiest,* the most despotic, and the most irresponsible 
of his times, at an age which, in many states, both ancient 
and modern, would have operated as a ground of absolute 
challenge to the candidate for offices the meanest. Intel- 
lectually speaking, again, a very large proportion of men 
never attain maturity. Nonage is their final destiny ; and 
manhood, in this respect, is for them a pure idea. Finally, 
as regards the moral development, — by which I mean the 
whole system and economy of their love and hatred, of 
their admirations and contempts, the total organization of 
their pleasures and their pains, — hardly any of our species 
ever attain manhood. It would be unphilosophic to say 
that intellects of the highest order were, or could be, devel- 

* "The haughtiest." — Which, however, is very doubtful. Such, 
certainly, was the popular impression. But people who knew Mr. 
Pitt intimately have always ascribed to him a nature the most amiable 
and social, under an unfortunate reserve of manner. "Whilst, on the 
contrary, Mr. Fox, ultra democratic in his principles and frank in his 
address, was repulsively aristocratic in his temper and sympathies. 



PREMATURE MANHOOD. 369 

oped fully without a corresponding development of the 
whole nature. But of such intellects there do not appear 
above two or three in a thousand years. It is a fact, forced 
upon one by the whole experience of life, that almost all 
men are children, more or less, in their tastes and admira- 
tions. Were it not for man's latent tendencies, — were it 
not for that imperishable grandeur which exists by way of 
germ and ultimate possibility in his nature, hidden though 
it is, and often all but effaced, — how unlimited would be 
the contempt amongst all the wise for his species! and 
misanthropy would, but for the angelic ideal buried and 
imbruted in man's sordid race, become amongst the noble 
fixed, absolute, and deliberately cherished. 

But, to resume my question, how, under so variable a 
standard, both natural and conventional, of every thing 
almost that can be received for a test or a presumption of 
manhood, shall we seize upon any characteristic feature, 
sufficiently universal to serve a practical use, as a criterion 
of the transition from the childish mind to the dignity (rela- 
tive dignity at least) of that mind which belongs to conscious 
maturity.? One such criterion, and one only, as I believe, 
there is — all others are variable and uncertain. It lies 
in the reverential feeling, sometimes suddenly developed, 
towards woman, and the idea of woman. From that mo- 
ment when women cease to be regarded with carelessness, 
and when the ideal of womanhood, in its total pomp of 
loveliness and purity, dawns like some vast aurora upon 
the mind, boyhood has ended ; childish thoughts and incli- 
nations have passed away forever ; and the gravity of 
manhood, with the self-respecting views of manhood, have 
commenced. 

" Mentemque priorem 
Expulit, atque hominem toto sibi cedere jussit 
Pectore." — Lucan. 
24 



370 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

These feelings, no doubt, depend for their development in 
part upon physical causes; but they are also determined 
by the many retarding or accelerating forces enveloped in 
circumstances of position, and sometimes in pure accident. 
For myself, I remember most distinctly the very day — the 
scene and its accidents — when that mysterious awe fell 
upon me which belongs to woman in her ideal portrait ; 
and from that hour a pro founder gravity colored all my 
thoughts, and a "beauty still more beauteous" was lit up 
for me in this agitating world. Lord Westport and my- 
self had been on a visit to a noble family about fifty miles 
from Dublin ; and we were returning from Tullamore by a 
public passage boat, on the splendid canal which connects 
that place with the metropolis. To avoid attracting an 
unpleasant attention to ourselves in public situations, I ob- 
served a rule of never addressing Lord Westport by his 
title : but it so happened that the canal carried us along the 
margin of an estate belonging to the Earl (now Marquis) 
of Westmeath ; and, on turning an angle, we came suddenly 
in view of this nobleman taking his morning lounge in the 
sun. Somewhat loftily he reconnoitred the miscellaneous 
party of clean and unclean beasts, crowded on the deck of 
our ark, ourselves amongst the number, whom he chal- 
lenged gayly as young acquaintances from Dublin ; and 
my friend he saluted more than once as " My lord." This 
accident made known to the assembled mob of our fellow- 
travellers Lord Westport's rank, and led to a scene rather 
too broadly exposing the spirit of this world. Herded 
together on the deck (or roof of that den denominated the 
''''State cabin") stood a party of young ladies, headed by 
their governess. In the cabin below was mamma, who as 
yet had not condescended to illuminate our circle, for she 
was an awful personage — a wit, a bluestocking, (I call 
her by the name then current,) and a leader of ton in Dub- 



PREMATURE MANHOOD. 371 

lin and Belfast. The fact, however, that a young lord, and 
on«} of great expectations, was on board, brought her up. 
A short cross examination of Lord Westport's French 
valet had confirmed the flying report, and at the same 
time (I suppose) put her in possession of my defect in all 
those advantages of title, fortune, and expectation which so 
brilliantly distinguished my friend. Her admiration of 
him, and her contempt for myself, were equally undis- 
guised. And in the ring which she soon cleared out for 
public exhibition, she made us both fully sensible of the 
very equitable stations which she assigned to us in her 
regard. She was neither very brilliant, nor altogether a 
pretender, but might be described as a showy woman, of 
slight but popular accomplishments. Any woman, how- 
ever, has the advantage of possessing the ear of any com- 
pany ; and a woman of forty, with such tact and expe- 
rience as she will naturally have gathered in a talking 
practice of such duration, can find little difficulty in mor- 
tifying a boy, or sometimes, perhaps, in tempting him to 
unfortunate sallies of irritation. Me it was clear that she 
viewed in the light of a humble friend, or what is known 
in fashionable life by the humiliating name of a " toad- 
eater." Lord Westport, full of generosity in what regarded 
his own pretensions, and who never had violated the per- 
fect equality which reigned in our deportment to each 
other, colored with as much confusion as myself at her 
coarse insinuations. And, in reality, our ages scarcely 
allowed of that lelation which she supposed to exist be- 
tween us. Possibly, she did not suppose it; but it is 
essential to the wit and the display of some people that it 
should have a foundation in malice. A victim and a 
sacrifice are indispensable conditions in every exhibition. 
In such a case, my natural sense of justice would generally 
have armed me a hundred fold for retaliation ; but at 



372 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

present, chiefly, perhaps, because I had no effectua ally, and 
could count upon no sympathy in my audience, I was mor- 
tified beyond the power of retort, and became a passive 
butt to the lady's stinging contumely and the arrowy sleet 
of her gay rhetoric. The narrow bounds of our deck 
made it not easy to get beyond talking range ; and thus it 
happened, that for two hours I stood the worst of this 
bright lady's feud. At length the tables turned. Two 
ladies appeared slowly ascending from the cabin, both in 
deepest mourning, but else as different in aspect as sum- 
mer and winter. The elder was the Countess of Errol, 
then mourning an affliction which had laid her life desolate, 
and admitted of no human consolation. Heavier grief — 
grief more self-occupied and deaf to all voice of sympa- 
thy — I have not happened to witness. She seemed 
scarcely aware of our presence, except it were by placing 
herself as far as was possible from, the annoyance of our 
odious conversation. The circumstances of her loss are 
now forgotten ; at that time they were known to a large 
circle in Bath and London, and I violate no confidence in 
reviewing them. Lord Errol had been privately intrusted 
by Mr. Pitt with an official secret, viz., the outline and 
principal details of a foreign expedition ; in which, accord- 
ing to Mr. Pitt's original purpose, his lordship was to have 
held a high command. In a moment of intoxication, the 
earl confided this secret to some false friend, who published 
the communication and its author. Upon this, the unhappy 
nobleman, under too keen a sense of wounded honor, and 
perhaps with an exaggerated notion of the evils attached 
to his indiscretion, destroyed himself. Months had passed 
since that calamity when we met his widow ; but time 
appeared to have done nothing in mitigating her sorrow. 
The younger lady, on the other hard, who was Lady 
Errol's sister, Heavens ! what t spirit of joy and 



PREMATURE MANHOOD. 373 

festal pleasure radiated from her eyes, her step, her voice, 
her manner! She was Irish, and the very impersoqatioa 
of innocent gayety, such as we find oftcner, perhaps, 
amongst Irish women than those of any other country. 
Mourning, I have said, she wore ; from sisterly considera- 
tion, the deepest mourning ; that sole expression there was 
about her of gloom or solemn feeling, — 

"But all things else about her drawn 
From May time and the cheerful dawn." 

Odious bluestocking * of Belfast and Dublin ! as some 

* I have sometimes had occasion to remark, as a noticeable phenom- 
enon of our present times, that the order of ladies called bluestockmgs^ 
by way of reproach, has become totally extinct amongst us, except 
only here and there with superannuated clingei-s to obsolete remem- 
brances. The reason of this change is interesting ; and I do not 
scruple to call it honorable to our intellectual progress. In the last 
(but still more in the penultimate) generation, any tincture of litera- 
ture, of liberal curiosity about science, or of ennobling interest in 
books, carried with it an air of something unsexual, mannish, and 
(as it was treated by the sycophantish satirists that for ever humor 
the prevailing folly) of something ludicrous. This mode of treatment 
was possible so long as the literary class of ladies formed a feeble 
minority. But now, when two vast peoples, English and American, 
counting between them forty-nine millions, when the leaders of tran- 
scendent civilization (to say nothing of Germany and France) behold 
their entire educated class, male and female alike, calling out, not fo ' 
Panem et circenses, (Give us this day our daily bread and our games 
of the circus,) but for Panem et litcras, (Give us this day our daily 
bread and literature.) the universality of the call has swept away the 
very name of hluestoclcing ; the very possibility of the ridicule has 
been undermined by stern realities ; and the verbal expression of the 
reproach is fast becoming, not simply obsolete, but even unintelligible 
to our juniors. By the way, the origin of this term hlncstochinrj has 
never been satisfactorily accounted for, unless the reader should in- 
cline to tliink my account satisfactory. I incline to that opinion my- 
self. Dr. Bisset (in his Life of Burke) traces it idly to a sobriquet 



374 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

would call you, how I hated you up to that moment ! half 
an hour after, how grateful I felt for the hostility which had 
procured me such an alliance ! One minute sufficed to put 
the quick-witted young Irish woman in possession of our 



imposed by Mrs. Montagu, and the literary ladies of her circle, upon 
a certain obscure Dr. Stillingfleet, who was the sole masculine assist- 
ant at their literary sittings in Portman Square, and ehose, upon some 
inexplicable craze, to wear blue stockings. The translation, however, 
of this name from the doctor's legs to the ladies' legs is still unsolved. 
That great hiatus needs filling up. I, therefore, whether erroneously 
or not, in reviewing a German historical work of some pretensions, 
where this problem emerges, rejected the Portman Square doctor 
altogether, and traced the term to an old Oxford statute — one of the 
many which meddle with dress, and which charges it as a point of 
conscience upon loyal scholastic students that they shall wear ceru- 
lean socks. Such socks, therefore, indicated scholasticism : worn by 
females, they would indicate a self-dedication to what for them would 
be regarded as pedantic studies. But, says an objector, no rational 
female would wear cerulean socks. Perhaps not, female taste being 
too good. But as such socks would symbolize such a profession of 
pedantry, so, inversely, any profession of pedantry, by whatever signs 
expressed, would be symbolized reproachfully by the imputation of 
wearing cerulean socks. It classed a woman, in effect, as a scholastic 
pedant. Now, however, when the vast diffusion of literature as a 
sort of daily bread has made all ridicule of female literary culture not 
less ridiculous than would be the attempt to ridicule that same daily 
bread, the whole phenomenon, thing and word, substance and shadow, 
is melting away from amongst us. Something of the same kind has 
happened in the history of silver forks. Forks of any kind, as is well 
known, were first introduced into Italy; thence by a fantastic (but, 
in this instance, judicious) English traveller immediately (and not 
rmdiately through France) were introduced into England. This elegant 
revolution occurred about 240 years ago ; and never since that day 
have there been wanting English protesters against the infamy of eat- 
ing without forks; and for the last 160 years, at least, against the 
paganism of using steel forks ; or, 2dly, two-pronged forks ; or, 3dly, of 
cutting the knife into the mouth. At least 120 years ago, the Duchess 
of Queensberry, (Gay's duchess,) that leonine woman, used to shriek 



PREMATURE BIANHOOD. 375 

little drama and the several parts we were playing. To 
look was to understand, to wish was to execute, with this 
ardent child of nature. Like Spenser's Bradamant, with 
martial scorn she couched her lance on the side of the party 
suffering wrong. Her rank, as sister-in-law to the constable 
of Scotland, gave her some advantage for winning a favor- 
able audience ; and throwing her segis over me, she extended 
that benefit to myself. Road was now made perforce for 
me also ; my replies were no longer stifled in noise and 
laughter. Personalities were banished ; literature was ex- 
tensively discussed ; and that is a subject which, offering 
little room to argument, offers the widest to eloquent dis- 

out, on seeing a hyperborean squire conveying peas to his abominable 
mouth on the point of a knife, " O, stop him, stop him! that man's 
going to commit suicide." This anecdote argues silver forks as exist- 
ing much more than a century back, else the squire had a good defence. 
Since then, in fact, about the time of the French revolution, silver 
forks have been recognized as not less indispensable appendages to any 
elegant dinner table than silver spoons ; and, along with silver forks, 
came in the explosion of that anti-Queensberry brutalism which forks 
first superseded — viz., the fiendish practice of introducing the knife 
between the lips. But, in defiance of all these facts, certain select hacks 
of the daily press, who never had an opportunity of seeing a civilized 
dinner, and fancying that their own obscene modes of feeding pre- 
vailed every where, got up the name of the Silver-fork School, (which 
should have indicated tlie school of decency,) as representing some 
ideal school of fantastic or ultra refinement. At length, however, 
.when cheap counterfeits of silver have made the decent four-pronged 
fork cheaper than the two-pronged steel barbarism, what has followed ? 
"Why, this — that the universality of the diffusion has made it hopeless 
any longer to banter it. There is, therefore, this strict analogy be- 
tween " the silver fork " reproach and " the bluestocking " reproach 
— that in both cases alike a recognition, gradually becoming universal, 
of the thing itself, as a social necessity, has put down forever all idle 
attempts to throw ridicule upon it — upon literature, in th( one case, 
as a most appropriate female ornament ; and upon silvei forks, on 
the other, as an element of social decorum. 



876 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

play. I had immense reading ; vast command of words, 
which somewhat diminished as ideas and doubts multiplied; 
and, speaking no longer to a deaf audience, but to a gener- 
ous and indulgent protectress, I threw out, as from a cor- 
nucopia, my illustrative details and recollections ; trivial 
enough, perhaps, as I might now think, but the more intel- 
ligible to my present circle. It might seem too much the 
case of a storm in a slop basin, if I were to spend any 
words upon the revolution which ensued. Suffice it, that I 
remained the lion of that company which had previously 
been most insultingly facetious at my expense ; and the 
intellectual lady finally declared the air of the deck un- 
pleasant. 

Never, until this hour, had I thought of women as objects 
of a possible interest or of a reverential love. I had known 
them either in their infirmities and their unamiable aspects, 
or else in those sterner relations which made them objects 
of ungenial and uncompanionable feelings. Now first it 
struck me that life might owe half its attractions and all its 
graces to female companionship. Gazing, perhaps, with 
too earnest an admiration at this generous and spirited young 
daughter of Ireland, and in that way making her those ac- 
knowledgments for her goodness which I could not properly 
clothe in words, I was aroused to a sense of my indecorum 

by seeing her suddenly blush. I believe that Miss Bl 

interpreted my admiration rightly ; for she was not offended, 
but, on the contrary, for the rest of the day, when not at- 
tending to her sister, conversed almost exclusively, and in 
d confidential way, with Lord Westport and myself. The 
whole, in fact, of this conversation must have convinced 
ner that I, mere boy as I was, (viz., about fifteen,) could not 
tiave presumed to direct my admiration to lier^ a fine young 
woman of twenty, in any other character than that of a gen- 
erous champion, and a very adroit mistress in the dazzling 



EEEMATTJRE MANHOOD. 377 

fence of colloquial skirmish. My admiration had, in reality, 
been addressed to her moral qualities, her enthusiasm, her 
spirit, and her generosity. Yet that blush, evanescent as it 
was, — the mere possibility that I, so very a child, should 
have called up the most transitory sense of bashfiilness or 
confusion upon any female cheek, first, — and suddenly, as 
with a flash of lightning, penetrating some utter darkness, 
illuminated to my own startled consciousness, never again 
to be obscured, the pure and powerful ideal of womanhood 
and womanly excellence. This was, in a proper sense, a 
revelation ; it fixed a great era of change in my life ; and 
this new-born idea, being agreeable to the uniform tenden- 
cies of my own nature, — that is, lofty and aspiring, — it 
governed my life with great power, and with most salutary 
effects. Ever after, throughout the period of youth, I was 
jealous of my own demeanor, reserved and awe-struck, in 
the presence of women ; reverencing, often, not so much 
them as my own ideal of woman latent in them. For I 
carried about with me the idea, to which often I seemed to 
see an approximation, of 

" A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
To warn, to comfort, to command." 

And from this day I was an altered creature, never again 
relapsing into the careless, irreflective mind of childhood. 

At the same time I do not wish, in paying my homage to 
the other sex, and in glorifying its possible power over ours, 
to be confounded with those thoughtless and trivial rheto- 
ricians who flatter woman with a false lip worship ; and, 
like Lord Byron's buccaneers, hold out to them a picture 
of their own empire, built only upon sensual or upon shad- 
owy excellences. We find continually a false enthusiasm, 
a mere bacchanalian inebriation, on behalf of woman, put 
forth by modern verse writers, expressly at the expense of 



378 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

the other sex, as though woman could be of porcelain, whilst 
man was of common earthern ware. Even the testirnonies of 
Ledyard and Park are partly false (though amiable) tributes 
to female excellence ; at least they are merely one-sided 
truths — aspects of one phasis, and under a peculiar angle. 
For, though the sexes differ characteristically, yet they 
never fail to reflect each other ; nor can they differ as to 
the general amount of development ; never yet was woman 
in one stage of elevation, and man (of the same commu- 
nity) in another. Thou, therefore, daughter of God and 
man, all-potent woman ! reverence thy own ideal ; and in 
the wildest of the homage which is paid to thee, as also in 
the most real aspects of thy wide dominion, read no trophy 
of idle vanity, but a silent indication of the possible gran- 
deur enshrined in thy nature ; which realize to the extent 
of thy power, — 

" And show us how divine a thing 
A woman may become." 

For what purpose have I repeated this story ? The 
reader may, perhaps, suppose it introductory to some tale 
of boyish romantic passion for some female idol clothed 
with imaginary perfections. But in that case he will be 
mistaken. Nothing of the kind was possible to me. I 
was preoccupied by other passions. Under the disease — 
for disease it was — which at that time mastered me, one 
solitary desire, one frenzy, one demoniac fascination, 
stronger than the fascinations of calenture, brooded over 
me as the moon over the tides — forcing me day and night 
into speculations upon great intellectual problems, many 
times beyond my strength, as indeed often beyond all 
human strength, but not the less provoking me to pur- 
sue them. As a prophet in days of old had no power to 
resist the voice which, from hidden worlds, called him to a 



PREMATURE MANHOOD. 379 

mission, sometimes, perhaps, revolting to his human sensi- 
bilities, as he must deliver, was under a coercion to de- 
liver the burning word that spoke within his heart, — or as 
a ship on the Indian Ocean cannot seek rest by anchoring, 
but must run before the wrath of the monsoon, — such in its 
fury, such in its unrelentingness, was the persecution that 
overmastered me. School tasks under these circumstances, 
it may well be supposed, had become a torment to me. 
For a long time they had lost even that slight power of 
stimulation which belongs to the irritation of difficulty. 
Easy and simple they had now become as the elementary 
lessons of childhood. Not that it is possible for Greek 
studies, if pursued with unflinching sincerity, ever to fall 
so far into the rear as a palcEstra for exercising both strength 
and skill ; but, in a school where the exercises are pursued 
in common by large classes, the burden must be adapted 
to the powers of the weakest, and not of the strongest. 
And, apart from that objection, at this period, the hasty 
unfolding of far different intellectual interests than such 
as belong to mere literature had, for a time, dimmed in 
my eyes the lustre of classical studies, pursued at whatso- 
ever depth and on whatsoever scale. For more than a 
year, every thing connected with schools and the business 
of schools had been growing more and more hateful to me. 
At first, however, my disgust had been merely the disgust 
of weariness and pride. But now, at this crisis, (for crisis 
it was virtually to me,) when a premature development of 
my whole mind was rushmg in like a cataract, forcing 
channels for itself and for the new tastes which it intro- 
duced, my disgust was no longer simply intellectual, but 
had deepened into a moral sense as of some inner dignity 
continually violated. Once the petty round of school tasks 
had been f^ as a molestation ; but now, at last, as a 
degradation. Constant conversation with grown-up men 



3S0 ^ AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

for the last half year, and upon topics oftentimes of the 
gravest order, — the responsibility that had always in some 
slight degree settled upon myself since I had become the 
eldest surviving son of my family, but of late much more 
so when circumstances had thrown me as an English stran- 
ger upon the society of distinguished Irishmen, — more, 
however, than all beside, the inevitable rebound and counter- 
growth of internal dignity from the everlasting commerce 
with lofty speculations, these agencies in constant opera- 
tion had imbittered my school disgust, until it was travel- 
ling fast into a mania. Precisely at this culminating point 
of my self-conflict did that scene occur which I have de- 
scribed with Miss Bl . In that hour another element, 

which assuredly was not wanted, fell into the seething 
caldron of new-born impulses, that, like the magic caldron 
of Medea, was now transforming me into a new creature. 
Then first and suddenly I brought powerfully before my- 
self the change which was worked in the aspects of society 
by the presence of woman — woman, pure, thoughtful, 
noble, coming before me as a Pandora crowned with per- 
fections. Right over against this ennobling spectacle, with 
equal suddenness, I placed the odious spectacle of school- 
boy society — no matter in what region of the earth ; 
schoolboy society, so frivolous in the matter of its disputes, 
often so brutal in the manner; so childish, and yet so 
remote from simplicity ; so foolishly careless, and yet so 
revoltingly selfish ; dedicated ostensibly to learning, and 
yet beyond any section of human beings so conspicuously 
ignorant. Was it indeed that heavenly which I was soon 
to exchange for this earthly ? It seemed to me, when con- 
templating the possibility that I could yet have nearly 
three years to pass in such society as this, J^at I heard 
some irresistible voice saying, Lay aside thy fleshly robes 
of humanity, and enter for a season into some brutal m^ 
carnation. 



PREMATURE MANHOOD. 381 

But what connection had this painful prospect with Lax- 
ton ? Why should it press upon my anxieties in approach- 
ing that mansion, more than it had done at Westport ? 
Naturally enough, in part, because every day brought me 
nearer to the horror from which I recoiled : my return to 
England would recall the attention of my guardians to the 
question, which as yet had slumbered ; and the knowledge 
that I had reached Northamptonshire would precipitate 
their decision. Obscurely, besides, through a hint which 
had reached me, I guessed what this decision was likely to 
be, and it took the very worst shape it could have taken. 
All this increased my agitation from hour to hour. But all 
this was quickened and barbed by the certainty of so im- 
mediately meeting Lady Carbery. To her it was, and to 
her only, that I could look for any useful advice or any 
effectual aid. She over my mother, as in turn my mother 
over Aer, exercised considerable influence ; whilst my 
mother's power was very seldom disturbed by the other 
guardians. The mistress of Laxton it was, therefore, 
whose opinion upon the case w^ould virtually be decisive ; 
since, if she saw no reasonable encouragement to any con- 
test with my guardians, I felt too surely that my own un- 
countenanced and unaided energies drooped too much for 
such an effort. Who Lady Carbery was, I will explain in 
my next chapter, entitled Laxton. Meantime, to me, indi- 
vidually, she was the one sole friend that ever I could 
regard as entirely fulfilling the offices of an honorable 
friendship. She had known me from infancy : when I 
was in my first year of life, she, an orphan and a great 
heiress, was in her tenth or eleventh ; and on her occa- 
sional visits to " the Farm," (a rustic old house then occu- 
pied by my father,) I, a household pet, suffering under an 
ague, which lasted from my first year to my third, natu- 
rally fell into her hands as a sort of superior toy, a toy 



382 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. 

that could breathe and talk. Every year our intimacy had 
been renewed, until her marriage interrupted it. But, 
after no very long interval, when my mother had trans- 
ferred her household to Bath, in that city we frequently 
met again ; Lord Carbery liking Bath for itself, as well as 
for its easy connection with London, whilst Lady Carbery's 
health was supposed to benefit by the waters. Her under- 
standing was justly reputed a fine one ; but, in general, it 
was calculated to win respect rather than love, for it was 
masculine and austere, with very little toleration for senti- 
ment or romance. But to myself she had always been 
indulgently kind ; I was protected in her regard, beyond 
any body's power to dislodge me, by her childish remem- 
brances ; and of late years she had begun to entertain the 
highest opinion of my intellectual promises. Whatever 
could be done to assist my views, I most certainly might 
count upon her doing ; that is to say, within the limits of 
her conscientious judgment upon the propriety of my own 
plans. Having, besides, so much more knowledge of the 
world than myself, she might see cause to dissent widely 
from my own view of what was expedient as well as what 
was right ; in which case I was well assured that, in the 
midst of kindness and unaffected sympathy, she would 
firmly adhere to the views of my guardians. In any cir- 
cumstances she would have done so. But at present a 
new element had begun to mix with the ordinary influences 
which governed her estimates of things : she had, as I 
knew from my sister's report, become religious ; and her 
new opinions were of a gloomy cast, Calvinistic, in fact, 
and tending to what is noio technically known in England 
as "Low Church," or " Evangelical Christianity." These 
views, being adopted in a great measure from my mother, 
were naturally the same as my mother's ; so that I could 
form some guess as to the general spirit, if not the exact 



PREMATURE MANHOOD. 383 

direction, in which her counsels would flow. It is singular 
that, until this time, I had never regarded Lady Carbery 
under any relation whatever to female intellectual society. 
My early childish knowledge of her had shut out that 
mode of viewing her. But now, suddenly, under the new- 
born sympathies awakened by the scene with Miss Bl , 

I became aware of the distinguished place she was qualified 
to fill in such society. In that Eden — for such it had now 
consciously become to me — I had no necessity to cultivate 
an interest or solicit an admission ; already, through Lady 
Carbery's too flattering estimate of my own pretensions, 
and through old, childish memories, I held the most distin- 
guished place. This Eden, she it was that lighted up sud- 
denly to my new-born powers of appreciation in all its 
dreadful points of contrast with the killing society of 
schoolboys. She it was, fitted to be the glory of such an 
Eden, who probably would, assist in banishing me for the 
present to the wilderness outside. My distress of mind 
was inexpressible. And, in the midst of glittering saloons, 
at times also in the midst of society the most fascinating, 
I — contemplating the idea of that gloomy academic dun- 
geon to which for three long years I anticipated too cer- 
tainly a sentence of exile — felt very much as in the 
middle ages must have felt some victim of evil destmy, 
inheritor of a false, fleeting prosperity, that suddenly, in a 
moment of time, by signs blazing out past all concealment 
on his forehead, was detected as a leper ; and in that 
character, as a public nuisance and universal horror, was 
summoned instantly to withdraw from society ; prince or 
peasant, was indulged with no time for preparation or 
evasion ; and, from the midst of any society, the sweetest 
or the most dazzling, was driven violently to take up his 
abode amidst the sorrow-haunted chambers of a lazar 
house. 



The author has exerted himself every where to keep the text accu- 
rate ; and he is disposed to believe that his own care, combined with 
the general accuracy of the press, must have enabled him to succeed 
in that object. But if it should appear that any errors have after all 
escaped him, he must request his readers to excuse them, after ex- 
plaining that he suffers under the oppression of a nervous distraction, 
which renders all labors exacting any energy of attention inexpressi 
bly painful. 



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